Life Beyond the Coffee Shop
by metaphoricalrhetorical
Summary: 26-year-old Felix has resigned himself to a mundane existence, an uninteresting career and a serially sparse love life. However, when a strange, pinstriped man appears in his workplace, a new defiance sparks within him. Later reunited with his customer, he is immediately seduced by the world of creatures and adventure, and discovers life beyond the coffee shop. Potential slash, OC.
1. Prologue

_Clutching at my stomach, I battle fatigue and nausea and dizziness so that I can raise my head. I need to see you; one last look at your magnificent, burning eyes will see me to my grave, if not content, at least appeased. After all, as someone used to misfortune, I have to take the best I can get; this is how I've always lived. I've never been one to want, or to gaze with envy at the possessions of others. I simply took what I could get._

_Travelling with you has made me feel a little like I finally got compensation for never being privelaged during my short lifetime, or prosperous, or even blessed with interesting occurances. What could be a better reward? I've seen sights that my old mind, cluttered with mundane things like stress and work and streets and city greyness, couldn't even have wondered at. And as if that weren't enough, I was given the opportunity to meet you. To stay with you. That reward topped them all. _

_You'd assume that all that would have, to some extent, encouraged my complete lack of greed; I was the luckiest person in the universe, so what could I possibly want for? I shouldn't have begun to want_ more_ the way I did. Only, you'd shown me that anything was possible, anything at all, and now that I'd realised I could have more, what could I do but wish for it? I'm not you; a Time Lord, all long-suffering and noble and the like. I'm only human, and I do want, badly. I want all the wrong things, things I have cause to feel guilty fo wanting._

_At the moment, my want is that I should live. I can feel wet heat trickling between my fingers and see the room moving even though it's not; I feel that way that I do when I'm so drunk after a night of routine sorrow-drowning that I have to worm my fingers into the gravel so that I don't fall from the surface of the Earth. I know with complete certainty that I'm going to die, but I don't feel resigned. It's only now that I have obtained the full ability to desire, and it's kicked in hard. I want more than I have ever wanted before. I want more than I have the right to want. I want you. I want you in all your terrifying glory, in all your madness and elusiveness and beauty._

_As though you can hear my thoughts, as I've often thought you can, you're here. I can't read your expression because a darkish tinge has begun to spread its way across my view of the world, and it's all I can manage to keep my eyes open, to lock them with yours._

_It doesn't give me any satisfaction to identify tears. There was a time when the prospect of you crying for me would have brought me such a profound, guilty joy. Now it brings me shame. The world nearly ended, all because you love me. _

_And you_ do_ love me, I know it. I can hear you now. You're loud and desperate and vindictive and you're telling me over and over, with a kind of humanity that on occasion I doubted you even had._

_Your arm has wormed its way under my shoulders, tugging me near you. I want to speak, but I can't say a word because the broken trauma on your face is more choking than the stab wounds in my gut. You're hurting. You are feeling real, genuine pain over my death. Your other hand pushes mine out of the way and presses down on the bloody gashes, more firmly than I could have done even without the immense loss of blood my body has undergone._

_I smile involuntarily, knowing very well how much too late it is. I tell you not to cry for me, because it's wrong that you should regret saving the world. I'm not sorry for what you've done, and neither should you be._

_You hush me, crooning sadly, telling me very gently that I should sleep._

_I shut my eyes. What can I do but obey? There's nothing left to do; I'm all but gone._

_Your lips touch my forehead, very gently. My last emotions are tinged with surprise; this is perhaps the most human gesture I have ever witnessed you make._

_With my very last thought I register your absence. You are gone._

* * *

**Promise it's not all this melodramatic, dears! Read on for a few laughs.**


	2. Tea

**Hello! This is my first ever Doctor Who fic, I'm rather excited. My aim is to post every two weeks AT THE LEAST. If I don't do that, you're entitled to PM me some hate. **

**Anyway, this fic is kind of my baby. I love all my characters dearly. I ship all my ships hard. I would appreciate reviews.**

**A MILLION THANKYOUS to the wonder that is Curly Wurly Me, my proofreader/muse-giver/partner-in-crime/plot-helper. I couldn't have done any of it without her ideas, support and brilliantness. Go creep her profile.**

**This is AU, after Season 3. **

**I own nothing from Doctor Who.**

In the mirror, Felix surveyed his face with a slight touch of hypochondria, registering that it was grey, anaemic and very worn-looking. He had read somewhere that humans see their own reflections as about a third more beautiful than they actually are, and as such are feeding their own vanity every time they look at themselves in the mirror. He didn't feel as though he were feeding any vanity, but the sight was definitely provoking serious concerns regarding his own personal health. If this was a third more beautiful, he pitied what the rest of the world had to look at each day, when they unsuspectingly wandered into the local coffee/wifi hotspot only to be greeted by a mousey-haired, too-lazy-to-shave-often, underweight, unhealthy-looking specimen of a barista who, although not unwilling to please, had little social skill and could think of few coffee-related conversational topics.

"MacArthur!"

Felix jumped, turned, flushed with embarrassment and dashed out of the loo in an impressively short space of time. He was greeted by the dulcet Glaswegian tones of Bobby, who, although not of a higher salary than Felix, deemed himself in charge of his fellow slaves to the coffee machine and greeted everyone by surname.

"That was a long fuckin' piss, MacArthur. Have ye seen a Doctor?"

Felix shook his head meekly, hazarded a weak smile and then trotted off to the counter, where he fiddled with a pot of herbal tea leaves in a way which may or may not have looked productive.

"'Scuse me! Oh, not you. Sorry. I was talking to him. Yes. Him. Ah. Hello. Can I have some of that?"

Felix turned. Before him stood a tall-ish, skinny-ish, moderately dishevelled yet passably smart man, who looked both too young and too old for his age all at once. He leant his lean, pinstriped frame against the counter, smiling expectantly.

Felix raised the jar questioningly. The man nodded vigorously.

"Yes. Wait." A sudden frown, a squint. "What is it?"

Felix blinked. "Winter spiced?"

"Yes. I'll have that. Spicy and wintry! Sounds yummy. Yum."

Unsure as to whether or not he was having the piss taken out of him by a london-but-not-quite-london accented lunatic in a suit, Felix turned away to begin a routine-making flurry, bowing his head to hide reddening cheeks, provoked by awkwardness.

He placed the tea beside the till. He had put it in a takeaway cup without having asked the strange man, deciding that this was one customer which he probably did not want to sit in.

"That's one seventy-five, sir." Felix trailed off as the man downed the scalding hot drink in one, before screwing up his face in disgust and making loud noises of distaste. The barista shifted behind the counter, noting that the majority of his co-workers were eyeing him with sympathy, except Bobby, who was shaking his shaggy, Glaswegian head in disapproval.

"Um…one-seventy-five?"

"Yes, yes, yes." The man waved his hand in the air. "I'm getting to that. What else have you got for me?"

Meekly, Felix pointed to the hot drinks menu on the wall. "We've got food, too." He offered, immediately regretting the words. He heard Bobby tutting with relish from not far off, and resisted the urge to hang his head in shame.

"Ah…I'll have…this. This kind of coffee. Right here. With extra froth. Please." The man winked, and Felix shifted uncomfortably, confused. "Come on! Chop chop!"

He turned in a flash, clumsily operating the coffee machine. Out of the corner of his eye, he spied Bobby shaking his head as he re-directed the ever-growing queue to make their way around the suited madman, who had begun to speak happily in a way that made Felix wonder if he was simply thinking aloud in that irritating way some people do.

"See, I'm looking for something quite specific. I couldn't tell you what it is…sure I'll find it in here, though. Coffee shops do everything, don't they? Maybe it's not a drink. Maybe I need a sandwich. I like sandwiches. Very human. Sticking stuff between bread. What an idea."

Felix sat the coffee down in front of the man, who grinned with utter joy, but on drinking it provided a similar display to the previous one, with extra-violent spluttering.

"What is this?" The man looked genuinely horrified. "Why….why?" Felix found himself mumbling an apology. He then remembered that Bobby was still watching and would likely use this event as a point of reference in some argument someday, so he made an attempt to clear his throat in a not-so-authoritative way. In a flash, Bobby was at his side.

"Not so fast, MacArthur." He muttered in an undertone, before turning to address the man. "Is there anything else we can get for you, sir? Perhaps our special blend?"

"Ooh. I like the sound of that."

"Not a problem, sir."

"Ohh." The man screwed up his face and flapped one hand dismissively. "Don't sir me. I'm not a sir. Well, I am, actually…but not to you…" he peered at Bobby's name tag. "…Bobby. I'm John. John Smith."

Felix, having been shimmied away from the counter, gazed dumbly as Bobby set another steaming cup in front of the potential lunatic that was Mr Smith. His co-worker sidled over in what he seemed to think was a conspiratorial manner.

"Don't be fooled." Smirked Bobby. "I've been around a lot of coffee shops, MacArthur. A lot. Every city has blokes like Mr Smith here. Bloody lunatics, but established fat cats." When Felix looked at him blankly, he tutted and shook his head. "Rich folk, MacArthur. Rich."

"I know. I mean, I know what a fat cat is. I just…" He paused, shifting uncomfortably, unwilling to be anything but meek before Bobby. The great, unshaven Glaswegian did not particularly invite challenge, especially not from Felix who by nature tended to do as he was told. "I mean, are you sure?"

Felix eyed 'Mr Smith' sceptically. He didn't look as though he could take himself seriously in any situation, including a business-related one. His hair wasn't shabbily cut, but flyaway, due to quite possibly never once having been brushed during its whole existence, and although his suit was sharp and expensive-looking, Felix spied a pair of extremely well-worn plimsolls protruding from the hem of his trousers. More than anything, really, he looked like one of those homeless people who seemed to manage to constantly dress deceptively smartly. The arty little voice in the back of Felix's head, which he usually tried to keep silent for the sake of both his career and his sanity, whispered that a man with such faraway, unearthly adventure in his eyes could not possibly be a businessman, or someone who dedicated his life to making money. Besides, the manner in which he now stirred sachets of salt into his coffee did most definitely not signify refinement.

"Of course I'm sure, MacArthur." Bobby replied scathingly, as Mr Smith gagged on his salty coffee, staring at Bobby as though it were he who had maliciously stirred salt into his special blend. "Not to your taste, Mr Smith? Nae worries, I'm sure there's something else on the menu."

Felix sighed, and leaned back against the salad bar, anticipating how long and wearing this particular shift would be.

Neurotically, he thought about what a negative effect this must be having on his nerves. He wondered if, one day, he might walk into work and have a heart attack right there on the dusty linoleum. Perhaps then Bobby would regret harassing him. Perhaps every awkward, annoying or aggressive customer he'd ever served would come to his funeral and express their regret for all the strain they'd put on his poor, weak heart. His family would weep. His friends would shake their heads and say 'what a waste', with tears in their eyes. And John-bloody-Smith would actually be too ashamed to show his face, and would lament the day he'd ever stirred salt into his special blend.

Interrupted in his morbid thoughts by painful-sounding, hacking coughs, Felix rested his gaze on the madman and the ever more unhappy-looking Bobby. The pile of cups suggested that Mr Smith might, in fact, have tried every last drink on the hot drinks menu.

Mr Smith shook his head with its fabulously ruffled hair, and looked to Felix, who dropped his gaze instantly.

"'Scuse me! You…um…" Felix looked up reluctantly to see Smith squinting at his name badge.

"Felix, sir."

"Felix. Good name." Smith nodded approvingly. "John Smith, not sir, never sir." He grinned, Felix shifted uneasily. "Tell me, Felix. What do you order in a coffee shop?"

Felix paused, staring. "Um…" he tried to gather some coherent thoughts. He'd be happy to say anything to appease this customer. Anything at all. "Um. Tea?"

"Tea!" The entire coffee shop turned to stare at the unnecessarily loud burst of what appeared to be wondrous realisation. "That's it! Tea!" John Smith whirled in a circle, before slamming both hands on the counter. "Felix. You are magnificent. Completely magnificent. Make me tea!"

It took Felix a moment or two to respond. He kept one eye on Mr Smith, who was happily mumbling to himself about tea.

Felix set the beverage down in front of his customer with care. He was tempted to back away, very slowly, before any disaster occurred, but he resisted for politeness' sake. Instead, he edged very awkwardly along the counter, hoping to discreetly put distance between himself and Smith.

John Smith took his time with the tea. He examined it from every angle, blew on it gently, swirled it with his little finger. When he finally took a sip, he smiled, and sighed with contentment.

"Oh, Felix." He shook his head. "What was I thinking, Felix? Of course it was tea, it was always tea."

"Of course." Felix agreed, somewhat self-consciously, as the tea was downed in one long, satisfied gulp.

"Right then. I'll be off. Places to go. People to see. Worlds to explore. Et cetera et cetera."

"Um. That's fifty-three seventy-five."

"Oh." Smith paused. "That's a lot."

"You drank nearly everything on the menu."

"Really? Oh. I suppose I did, yeah." He grinned suddenly. "Well, I've no money. Should I run?"

Bobby appeared quite without warning.

"'Scuse me, sir, but I think you'll find that you assured my colleague that you could pay for your purchase."

Smith frowned. "No. No, I don't think I did. Did I?"

"He didn't." Felix chipped in, without quite knowing what possessed him to do so. He shrank a little at Bobby's icy stare.

"See! He says I didn't!" Smith grinned, joyful.

"It doesn't matter." Growled Bobby. "Y'still have to pay."

"Ohh, don't be like that…"

"I'll pay."

It was as if the words had been spoken by a stranger. A completely different person, who just so happened to be residing in the same scrawny body as he. A spiritual interloper of sorts, who had bounced their way momentarily into Felix's mind, used his power of speech, and then dashed away again, leaving him to deal with the consequences. Felix could think of no good reason why he would even consider volunteering to do such a thing. He didn't have a substantial enough salary to splurge fifty quid on himself on such a whim, let alone perform random acts of charity. Yet he, Felix MacArthur, had undeniably spoken those words.

"Pardon?" Smith seemed stunned, but his lips curved in a bemused little half-smile. "What?"

"What, MacArthur?" Bobby's voice was quite thunderous. Felix shifted ever so slightly, trying not to quail, as he instinctively felt the need to back away from this situation.

"I said I'll pay. Um…" He paused, his voice quavering a little as a result of the monumentally irritated stare he was receiving from his co-worker. "Um…I've got about twenty quid on me now…I'll square up the rest. You know. From my wages. 'Kay?"

Smith eyed him. "Ohh, I can't let you do that."

Felix sighed, becoming frustrated. He tugged his wallet out of his pocket and emptied the contents on the counter. "There. Paying. And my shift's over."

He directed his last comment at Bobby with extremely uncharacteristic defiance.

Felix's eyes remained on Smith as he pulled off his apron. He wasted no time in donning his scarf and coat, remembering with a weak twinge of irritation that it was the only winter coat he actually owned and that the twenty pounds he had just relinquished had only been in his wallet for the purpose of buying a new one that very afternoon, in preparation for a visit to the highlands.

However, he was set in his decision. The sudden, inexplicable and atypical courage he was feeling seemed unlikely to be a permanent fixture in his usually meek personality, but whilst it lasted he was determined to use it to rebel against Bobby. If that cost him actual, real cash, then so be it.

As he stalked huffily across the shop, he felt all his colleagues staring at him with indiscreet disbelief. He didn't blame them. He was not a defiant person. He was not particularly brave, especially when it came to confrontations with others. He was docile, anxious, bashful, introverted. He did as he was told and often worried what others thought of him. He was utterly without self-confidence, and this was a widely-known fact.

But he was only human. There was only so much he could take. He had resigned himself to a somewhat uninteresting existence, but not to this dead-end-ish experience he had been having over the past couple of months, and not to the crushing mundane-ness of his career as a barista, and certainly not to Bobby's teashop tyranny.

Felix didn't miss the little two-fingered wave-salute-thing which Smith directed at him, but he did not return it. There was something about that man which sang out _do not associate with me._ It was similar to the instinct one had not to walk down an alleyway at night time, or not to put one's hand in an unknown place, or jump down a deep dark hole which was known to contain an undetermined something.

The allure of such mystery infected Felix with enticement, forcing him to turn back and look at the strange, tea-drinking, pinstriped man. Just once.

* * *

Felix lamented the loss of his fifty pounds for the rest of the day. As he walked through Edinburgh, he passed the window of his coat-vending shop of choice and paused for a moment.

He did not _need _the coat. He considered the coat he currently possessed to be something of a signature garment of his. It was not quite stylish, but was multi-purpose, warm, and a neutral shade of grey-black. It was woollen and had big, smart-looking metal buttons. He even liked to think that it made him look a little more like a man and less like the scrawny, underweight, student-y fellow that he really was, who had never grown up properly and lived like something of a recluse.

No, he didn't have any particular requirement for a new coat. He was relatively attached to the one he was already wearing. However, it was nice to buy something new, if inexpensive, once in a while. He didn't really care for shiny new possessions…but if he went in, tried it on, took his time pretending to browse more expensive garments as though he could actually afford them, took the cheap one to the till and paid as though buying new coats was something he did all the time, then he could make believe for a little while that he was a proper adult with a proper job and a proper house, in a proper relationship with proper friends. He could pretend he didn't in fact, still live like a student, on caffeine and instant noodles. It was just nice.

So, as he looked in the window with mild longing, just for a second longer, he resented the man who called himself John Smith. Just slightly. Yes, the satisfaction of having so bravely defied Bobby still lingered, but was slowly fading to be replaced by a realisation of how wearing it would be to return to his next shift with a resentful Bobby.

He shoved his thoughts brutally aside as he reached his destination; the hectic train station. It was packed to the point of seeming most unwelcoming, and he tugged his possessions closer, nervous of potential thieves approaching from all around him.

It was a consolation that the train neared almost as soon as he reached the platform, rushing and screaming as it hissed to a halt. Felix was soon being buffeted by the crowds of passengers. He shoved his hand into his pocket to grip his phone tightly and bundled his backpack under his arm as he wormed his way through the people. He was not bulky or strong or irritable enough to shove people out of his way, but luckily enough his less than substantial diet had left him with a lithe enough form to slip through the slimmest of gaps practically unnoticed.

Once on the train, he picked a window seat which appeared solitary, but was nonetheless soon joined by a teenage girl who made every attempt possible to engage him in conversation. Felix wondered why she was so keen to impart to him the finer details of her personal life, given that he could easily be a person of a dangerous nature (despite appearances), but he politely humoured her anyway. It wasn't too irritating after a while as long as he remembered to nod awkwardly and make the odd sympathetic noise.

He wasn't unused to being a shoulder to cry on. All Edinburgh's lost, lonely and broken-hearted souls seemed to flock daily to his workplace and, knowing that he would not complain and was quite used to being put upon, Felix's colleagues would stand aside and allow him to serve any potential weepers or whiners. He was not particularly good at offering comfort, but he was at least accustomed to listening to long monologues without seeming rudely uninterested.

So he sat, resisting the temptation to put his forehead to the window and close his weary eyes, nodding and 'ahh'-ing at all the correct intervals. His eyes slowly began to glaze over. His mind floated elsewhere, dwelling uneasily on the fact that Bobby would likely find a way to report him to higher powers for some imaginary offence, after his earlier display of mutiny. Felix's sudden, strange drive to challenge had long since faded and been replaced by nagging regret; although Bobby was not widely listened to amongst his bosses, neither was Felix. A confrontation would not be a welcoming prospect, should it threaten to occur.

He could not fathom, now that he had regained enough rationality to put things into perspective, where such desires to irk his most intimidating co-worker had come from. Felix did not make a habit of provoking people or things which might cause hassle, so it was tremendously unusual for him to have an urge to so forwardly toy with Bobby's rage.

It was John Smith's fault, he knew that much. If he lost his job, that'd be John Smith's fault too. At least when he was redundant and homeless, Felix would be able to blame John Smith, the pinstriped, tea-drinking lunatic.

It was his fault for many reasons. Firstly, had Smith not entered the café in the first place, there would never have arisen a situation during which Felix could have been tempted to fork out of his own wallet to aid a man who was so openly confronting Bobby and the rightful order of his coffee shop. Secondly, had John Smith not appeared to be quite so mentally deficient, the barista would not have been afflicted with the pity necessary to extend the hand of charity. Lastly, and most importantly, it had seemed to be John Smith's presence which had infected Felix with the necessary courage to act so boldly. As soon as the man had entered and begun to order, Felix had felt a stirring of emotion within himself. He had been too preoccupied to identify it at the time, and usually did his best to ignore flyaway emotions in the workplace anyway. Now, as he was free to ponder it in a little more depth, he recognised it as unmistakeable envy. John Smith had walked in emanating waves of the strongest kind of lunacy, it was true, but amidst that, the wannabe starving artist who resided within Felix had not seen madness, but self-confidence and a sort of self-assured courageousness. He had walked in with authority and charisma and had had the bravery to challenge conformity and break the rules, all with a charming grin decorating his face. Without quite knowing why, Felix had envied this, and borne from this envy had been a very un-Felix-y boldness.

So it was John Smith's fault. He could blame John Smith for whatever came of his actions, and it was a comfort to have someone to blame.

An hour or two after the girl left, when he delved into his bag to extract a little packet of salted peanuts, he found that a tiny slip of paper had been not-so-discreetly slid into a side pocket. Scrawled on it was the name 'Jay', a mobile number and a painfully girly-looking e-mail address. Felix folded the paper into a miniscule square and slipped it between his seat and the one beside him. Sometimes, he wished he were the type of person capable of being very, very rude. Being nice often seemed to bring about such undesirable effects.


	3. Came upon him, stilled and oblivious

**I love you guys. Seriously. I was so terrified people wouldn't like Felix, 'cause...he's like, my BABY. And I love him. So if everyone else had been like...wtf bro. I'd have been like DDDDDD: But I've had so much nice stuff said. Me and my baby are both v. v. happy. Thank you so much for all the reviews. I was so happy that I was like...ack. Yay. Happiness.**

**In case you were interested, Felix's accent is kind of...Northern Irish-y...but quite tinged with Edinburghness. It's relatively neutral, but not English. Not that anyone asked, I was just thinking about it myself****.**

** So. Yeah. I'm babbling because I have the worst cold ever andmy brain is mashed. Idk what's up with me. But anyway. I shouldn't be posting this, 'cause I'd resolved that I wouldn't post 3 until 4 was typed up, and 4 until 5 was done and etc etc etc...but I'm just kinda like whatevvvvvs right now.**

**I am so unwell. Ugh. Sniff sniff.**

**Anyway. I hope you like this. I don't own Doctor Who. If you're interested, the poem is 'Last Look' by Seamus Heaney. It has nothing to do with anything here, really. I was just thinking of the Doctor in the highlands, staring away, and it reminded me of that poem. For the record, I don't own that either. It's just quite a cool poem.**

**By the way, my prologue's been edited. It's slightly less cringily melodramatic now. Not much. Just slightly.**

**Getting reviews makes me super happy.**

* * *

The highlands were cold, and Felix was grudgingly glad that he was wearing a coat designed for warmth and wear, as opposed to the more tailored-looking, but less sturdy garment that he had hoped to purchase.

Of course, he had no money whatsoever for any kind of public transport, and he wasn't entirely sure that such a thing existed in these parts anyway. The trek to this cottage on the hill, in which his 83-year-old grandmother lived, was somewhat trying, but the exercise was relatively refreshing after the extensive train journey, despite his mild exhaustion.

Felix's thoughts of his grandmother prompted a familiar guilt to prick at him irritably. More than once he had offered to make a permanent move to the highland village, so that she might have the company she so craved. She had refused each time. He could always predict the reply before he posed the question. A little, ashamed part of him knew that if he ever believed that she would give a different reply then he would probably be inclined not to ask in the first place. He was still clinging on in vain to an utterly hopeless hope; the hope that his life in the capital city would eventually take him somewhere new.

He knew he had the right to live his life, but the guilt remained. His career, his love life, his emotional well-being…none of these were actually moving forwards. He stood as much chance of living a substantial existence in his grandmother's secluded little village as he did anywhere, yet still he held out, remaining in his lonely little flat, waiting fruitlessly for change or opportunity or miracle.

The sky was darkening, but the cottage was in view. He loved the cottage; it perched, slightly sloping, at the very peak of the little hill, looking out at the village as though it were in charge, and well did it know it.

He worried for his grandmother, however. A walk to the shops, to the outside world, to company, was a potential deathtrap for an eighty-three-year-old, all marsh and potholes and long grassy reedy things. He pictured her tripping, lying in the mud with no-one there to find her, and his guilt intensified.

Soon, he was a step away from the gate. He reached for it, pushed, expecting a creak but as always receiving silence. Another hazard, he thought. Someone could wander up her garden at night and lie there in wait without her being any the wiser.

Felix sighed softly to himself. It was always this way when he visited the highlands. In the same way every mirror he looked in brought on vaguely worrying onsets of hypochondria, everything in and around his grandmother's home brought him powerful anxiety in regards to her well-being.

He paused, just before reaching the front door of the cottage. Something rustled disconcertingly nearby. Felix looked over his shoulder, squinting at the slightly overgrown garden, eyeing all the more discreet spots that he was aware of. He spotted nothing unusual, so he took a moment or two to rummage in his pocket for his glasses. He was actually supposed to wear these the majority of the time, but, feeling that they made him look more like a schoolboy than he already did, he opted not to for the most part. It had to be said, however, that this was probably unwise; the world was substantially sharper with them on. However, he still spotted nothing out of the ordinary.

He turned fully and moved away from the door, perplexed. He hadn't imagined the noise, the movement. He speculated that it was most likely the cat. If so, the obvious solution was to call out the pet's name. It would come running, promptly, as always. Felix, however, opted not to do this. His grandmother's elderly cat had a stupid name which he would feel uncomfortable shouting loudly across the highlands. Instead, he scanned the garden and the surrounding hilly landscape.

In the distance, Felix saw something which disconcerted him; a sight which did not quite fit the surroundings, which seemed alien to the landscape.

He could just make out a man, crouched in a patch of long, erratically swaying grass, tens of metres down the hill from the cottage, motionless, staring.

Felix was very suddenly reminded of part of his GCSE English Literature course; a stanza of a poem flickered into his mind and danced there for a moment, mild nostalgia hot on its heels. He did not recall the title, or even whether or not it had appeared in his exams, but he remembered that it was by Heaney, and that he had liked it at the time.

_We came upon him, stilled_

_and oblivious,_

_gazing into a field_

_of blossoming potatoes,_

_his trouser bottoms wet_

_and flecked with grass seed._

_Crowned blunt-headed weeds_

_that flourished in the verge_

_flailed against our car_

_but he seemed not to hear_

_in his long watchfulness_

_by the clifftop fuchsias._

Felix frowned. He could make out little; light was growing dimmer and the man was too far away. The figure was lithe, and seemingly nimble from the poise it maintained. He was extraordinarily still. His intent concentration (or complete lack thereof) was unnerving. What was most perplexing was his attire, seeming more suited to business than to agriculture, which was the average industry for any male individual in the remote, highland village.

Both men continued to stare at their subjects of interest. Felix's head tilted, his lips parted slightly. His skin prickled with intrigue.

"Felix? Felix, is that you out there?"

Felix started slightly, and turned to face his grandmother, rearranging his features hastily.

"Pet, come inside. You have to help me, Felix. You've got to help me."

* * *

"How long's it been, Gran?"

"A week or two." His grandmother replied tearfully, clutching her cup of tea. "Didn't want to go begging for help, not from anyone in the village."

Felix suppressed a sigh. It was this kind of attitude which caused him so much worry every time he returned to Edinburgh.

"Why not, Gran?" He paused. "They wouldn't mind."

"Oh, they needn't worry about me."

Felix did not reply. If she could not bring herself to ask for help in regards to easily solved matters such as this one, then he had cause to be troubled as to how she might act if one day something went seriously wrong.

"You'll find her, Felix?" she pleaded.

He nodded immediately. "Of course."

"I've been so worried. You hear these rumours."

Felix frowned slightly. "Rumours?"

"Oh, yes." His grandmother nodded. "There's all this talk. Spooky stuff. They say there's a cat, a big one."

"A cat?"

"Aye, a proper big one. Takin' sheep and so on."

That figured. The farmers were always finding enemies for their livestock. What else was there to gossip about in such a tiny, uneventful area? "They're just rumours, Gran."

His grandmother nodded, the worry beginning to melt from her face. She smiled. "Thank you, dear." She set her cup downs, and pushed herself to her feet in a surprisingly nimble manner. Felix instinctively stood with her and extended a hand of help, which was ignored.

"I'll put on some dinner. I've been trying out some funny new recipes. Fancy Italian things. I'm not convinced, but you like that sort of thing, don't you? You with your funny diet and all those noodle things."

"I'll help."

She looked at him blankly. "But…you're going out to look for Tinkerbell."

"Oh. Yeah. Right." Felix had had no intention of beginning the search for his grandmother's missing cat until the next morning at least, when there was daylight, but her eyes were imploring. He could not refuse. "I'll get my coat."

"Ach, Felix. You're a good boy."

"Aren't I just." Felix muttered to himself as he left the tartan-infested living room and wearily donned his coat and scarf. "See you later."

The air was as cold as he had dreaded, and the sky darker. Felix glanced wearily back at the little house, before hunching his shoulders and turning up his collar against the breezey chill and beginning to trudge down the hill.

He regretted not bringing a torch almost instantly. To compensate for this failure of forethought, he pulled out his phone and shone its dim little backlight at his path. He watched for a rustling of undergrowth, or a flash of bright, reflective eyes. He prayed that it would be an easy find, and that he would not have to wander the highlands calling out for Tinkerbell.

His prayers were, incredibly, heard. His eyes widened as, suddenly, a patch of grass began to twitch. It was not often Felix's wishes were so promptly answered, and so he paused for a moment, disbelieving.

"Gift horse," he muttered to himself. "Not in the mouth…"

He dropped gingerly into a crouch, mindful of the little black creature's skittishness. Careful and crablike, he edged a little closer.

"Tinkerbell?" he murmured softly, feeling as much like an idiot as was to be expected. He extended a tentative hand. "Come on…" he crooned softly.

Suddenly, he was serenaded by a low, feral growling. A black tail with clumped, unkempt fur protruded from the undergrowth, flicking aggressively.

"Come on, pet…"

The little cat revealed itself. It hissed furiously. Felix recoiled. It spat.

Tinkerbell was not coming back to the cottage; this Felix decided there and then. It was clear that this cat was no longer suited to domestic life. He wasn't putting it back into his grandmother's home. It barely even looked like a cat anymore. Not a house cat, at the very least.

What had once been Tinkerbell was the picture of aggressiveness. She growled furiously, her matted tail bristling and her back arched. She looked like a Halloween decoration.

Felix shifted away, most unnerved. Not only was the formerly glossy lapcat unusually aggressive and ever so slightly frightening, but Tinkerbell, all of a sudden, seemed to almost live up to her ethereal, unearthly name.

The creature's eyes glowed at Felix. They were changed eyes; bright blue, pupil-less, and without emotion. Lit up as though by electricity. He stared back, unable to comprehend or to look away from the eerie gaze.

_What had happened to Tinkerbell?_

She seemed about to move, to pounce, and Felix began to try and back away without first standing; a feat which proved difficult but not altogether impossible. However, he was frozen suddenly and immediately by a sound which came menacingly from behind him. It was not dissimilar to Tinkerbell's enraged little noises and yet completely different. It was animalistic, ringing with wildness and instinct, but it had a strange, unfathomable edge to it. It was not ragged, as the growl of a beast should be, but monotone, almost metallic, like a machine.

Every part of Felix seemed to stop what it was doing and shiver collectively. He breathed in a slow breath as silently as he could, and held it. His heartbeat felt as though it were loud enough for any creature in the vicinity to hear, thumping incessantly against the sides of his head. His form was so tensed that he wondered if he might snap like an overstretched elastic band.

He started violently when a feral yelp came from behind him, followed by even more vicious growling.

Suddenly, Felix was yanked to his feet by a hand which, quite out of nowhere, closed over his own.

"_Run."_

He obeyed with no second though, glad of the hand pulling him along as he stumbled through long grasses and tried to avoid rocks. They sped up the hill, he and the mystery man, into his grandmother's garden, Felix stumbling, but the oddly familiar form which guided him remaining perfectly graceful as it sprinted.

When they stopped, they found themselves enclosed in Felix's grandmother's shed, in total darkness.

"Are you alright?" The voice was extremely familiar, although more intense and with less lunacy than Felix had heard in it before.

Quickly, he fumbled for the light.

"It's you!" He exclaimed as dim yellow light buzzed on, flickering in protest. "You're here!"

Smith looked quite as surprised as Felix felt. "Oh, Felix!" He grinned, apparently joyous. "Felix the coffee boy!"

"Yeah…uh. John Smith?" Felix allowed a light note of cynicism to creep into his voice. He was no longer at work. 'The customer is always right' did not apply in this situation.

The man winked. "Yup. That's me."

"Really?"

"Not really."

"I figured."

Smith eyed him. "You didn't answer. Are you alright?"

Felix nodded. "Fine."

He received another grin. "Not going to ask my name? It's polite."

And here Felix had thought he might actually not have been a lunatic. He gazed at the man blankly.

"Shocking, what would Bobby say?"

Felix raised an eyebrow. "After earlier, he'd tell us both to fuck off. Emphatically."

"Oh. Well, I'm the Doctor."

"Felix."

"I know. Great name, if you don't mind me saying."

"'The Doctor'?"

"Yep." The Doctor nodded shortly.

"People call you…'the Doctor'?"

"Yeah. Capital 'D'."

"Right then." Felix surveyed the Doctor for a moment. He was only marginally more dishevelled than he had been that morning. Other than the after effects of his mad highland dash, he was the same; only an inch or two taller than Felix, with about the same lack of bodyweight but much better looking. His features were cheekily handsome, his eyes brown and bright. "Um…why did we run?"

The Doctor frowned. "Thought that'd be obvious. Big growly thing behind you. Roar."

"I know that." Felix reddened. "Are you saying it was dangerous?"

There was a pause. The Doctor eyed him, then swiftly moved to squint out of a tiny, dusty window. "I'm not sure…" He pulled something tube-like out of an inner pocket. It began to buzz heartily, a blue light glowing through the old, filthy glass. "But…I would have to say….it's gone now."

Felix watched. Something told him that fear was probably the correct emotional response to this situation. One of two things was occurring; first, it was possible that somewhere, wandering around on the highlands was something potentially dangerous. Either that or he was stuck inside a shed with a madman.

The second of those two possibilities was, admittedly, the more believable. However, Felix was looking more closely at the Doctor, and whilst there was plenty to suggest madness, there was more suggesting intelligence. Concentration. Otherworldliness. Trustworthiness. Now that he was out of the workplace, the arty little voice did not need to be quite so suppressed. Perhaps it was that which made him feel as though he should trust the strange, skinny man with his pinstripes and good looks and buzzing things. It, once again, detected adventure in the Doctor's eyes. This time around, it allowed itself to be thoroughly seduced by the mystery, the far-off-ness it saw.

So he opted to trust the Doctor. He'd heard growling, loud and clear. And the Doctor had saved him as though saving was quite the hobby of his.

"Oh! Felix, I'm sorry." The Doctor turned and pocketed his buzzing device. "I'm standing in your shed."

He reached for the door.

"Wait!" Felix moved instinctively with him, reaching out to block his hand. "Is it safe?"

The Doctor grinned. "Not a clue. Can't stay in here, though."

"But…where will you go?"

"Um…" The Doctor paused. "Not sure. The village?"

"That's…you'd have to walk. In the dark. And there's…a thing."

"I know. Yeah."

"You said it might be dangerous."

"Yeah. I did."

"Um…"

The Doctor raised his eyebrows, tilting his head slightly.

"Um…" Felix shifted. "That cottage is my gran's."

"…That's nice."

"Um…I mean…" Felix felt the heat rising up the back of his neck. It was like asking someone on a date, which, admittedly, he was terrible at. He often wondered why he was quite so rubbish and socially awkward. He had yet to come to a conclusion regarding the matter. "Um…do you want to come for dinner? You can stay the night."

"Oh." The Doctor seemed surprised for a moment, then quite pleased. "Yeah, alright."

Felix nodded. "'Kay then." He paused at the door of the shed. His hand rested on the rusted door handle.

"It's…gone?"

"Yup. Gone. For now, at least."

"You're sure?"

"Trust me. I have a buzzy thing."

Felix nodded unquestioningly. He later wondered _why_ he had not questioned this because, as a general rule, he did not consider buzzy things sensible reasons on which to found the basis of trust.

Once he had opened the door of the shed, he paused for a moment, glancing around. What little light had been left previously was now gone; the outside world was very nearly pitch black, save for the glow of the cottage's indoor lights.

"S'lovely up here. No artificial light. You can see all the stars." The Doctor was close behind him, he jumped slightly. "Go on."

Rushing across the garden to the front door awakened mild déjà vu as he recalled his childhood habit of turning out the light and sprinting to his bed as a child. The clichéd, irrational feeling that something was lurking in the dark, ready to pounce. He'd have felt like a complete idiot had he not noticed that the Doctor kept pace; it was comforting to know that this time, the sense of urgency was not irrational.

The handle would not open when he tried it; the door had been locked. His first reaction was to be slightly irritated at his gran; he needed _in. _Now. Then he experienced a touch of relief, as it was comforting to know that she remembered to do things like lock doors.

"Gran?" He knocked loudly, trying not to sound too urgent. He didn't want her to have any more reason to believe the ridiculous (or not) tales which her fellow villagers had been scaring her with, and this depended on her knowing nothing of his strange experience. "Gran! It's me!"

"Don't you have a key?" The Doctor began buzzing again, scanning the pitch black lawn with serious eyes.

Felix blinked, slightly offended. "I don't live with my grandmother."

"Oh, course not. Sorry."

Behind the door, he heard movement.

"Gran?"

The door opened. "Oh, you! You took your time. Did you find—" she broke off. Her gaze found the Doctor. He grinned toothily and raised a hand.

"Hallo."

She continued to stare, then wandered her gaze back to Felix. "A…friend, Felix?"

"Um. No. Yes. Uh, sort of."

"Definitely!" The Doctor nodded. "Friends. Good friends. _Best_ friends. I'm the Doctor."

Audrey MacArthur's smile grew wider. "I see…well, come on in, Doctor. Dinner's ready soon."

"Thank you!" The Doctor entered first, grinning round happily at the world of tartan.

"Ooh, Felix." Smiled his grandmother, conspiratorially. "Moving on up in the world, aren't we, bringing home a Doctor. He must be clever…he looks clever."

Felix said nothing as his Gran bustled off into the kitchen, praying that the Doctor would not put on any more displays of his earlier madness.

Fortunately, as Felix followed him into the living room, it seemed that he was acting relatively sober as he sternly examined a cat-shaped bookend. Felix coughed lightly to announce himself.

"Um. Sit down. If you like."

"Thanks." The Doctor flung himself quite casually into the only non-tartan chair in the room, and looked up at Felix with bright eyes. "How did I find you, Felix? Second time you've helped me out in one day. Beginning to like you."

"Don't worry about it."

"I won't."

"Um…that thing." Felix paused. "Could you tell me what it was?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Haven't the foggiest. Your guess is as good as mine." He frowned. "Weeeellll…not quite as good, 'cause I'm brilliant, but….I still don't know. Some kind of big cat."

"Do you mean…like…a cat that's quite big, or an actual _big cat_? Like…like a lion?"

"Well, not quite a lion. But yep. Big cat. ABC's, they call them."

"ABC's?"

"Alien Big Cats."

"Oh." Felix nodded slightly. "I've heard of stuff like that. Like the Beast of Bodmin."

"Exactly."

"But…that's all hoax-y stuff. Like crop circles."

The Doctor changed position to sit properly in his chair, arching an eyebrow. "You heard it. Did it sound like a hoax to you?"

Felix pondered this.

"It doesn't make sense, though." continued the Doctor. "Not even to me, and things usually make sense to me. It wasn't just a cat in the wrong place. It wasn't your average big cat at all. So…why?"

"Poisoned?"

"Sorry?" the Doctor frowned. Felix reddened.

"Um. Well. You said it's not…ordinary. I saw another…'not ordinary' cat. Gran's cat. Tinkerbell. She was…different. All…" the Doctor's gaze was intent. He faltered a little. "Her eyes were weird. She was…angry. And…she was sort of…I don't know, rabid? So…" he swallowed. "So, if this other cat was the same…they both got, like, infected? Poisoned?"

"Ohh. I like that."

"…like…?"

"Sorry, wrong word. It's a good theory. Bravo." The Doctor leaned back in the chair, frowning. "That would explain something. Although…I wouldn't say poisoned. Genetically altered, yes. Tell me…did your Tinkerbell still look like herself? You recognised her?"

"Yeah. Same size and colour and all. Everything. It was her. Just…those eyes, and…she was kind of wild."

"Hmmm." The Doctor mused. "The other one wasn't a domestic cat. Definitely not small. Definitely not from Scotland. But from Earth…"

"…Earth?"

"Ohh…just putting things into perspective. Forget I said that."

"But…so…" Felix frowned. "You're saying that someone took, say…a tiger or something…and did something to it…and then dumped it here?"

"Basically." The Doctor grinned suddenly. "I love it when there's more than one mystery." He paused. "Not a tiger."

"Why ABC's? Why that name?" Felix paused. "I mean…is that why you said…you know, 'from Earth'?

"'Alien'" there means in an unusual habitat." The Doctor explained. "I said 'from Earth' because I'm mad, ignore me."

"Oh." Felix paused. "I don't think you're mad."

The Doctor laughed a little. "I don't hear that much."

"I bet." Felix muttered, before speaking up again, ignoring instinctive shyness. "Why the eyes? Gran's cat, her eyes were…different."

"Seems to me like their genetic make-up's been modified, that the actual chromosomes have been altered, mutated by force."

"Um. I got a C in my biology GCSE…that sounds really impossible."

"If humans had the technology to do that, there'd be no sex-linked diseases."

"So it's impossible."

"For 21st-century humans, yes."

Felix eyed the Doctor. There was little trace of the Bobby-defying madness now. He did not lack eccentricity, but his voice and his eyes told of boundless intelligence.

"Um…" Felix frowned. "Are you, like…an expert? Or…I mean, who are you?"

The Doctor made some vague gestures in the air. "Oh, you know. Passing through, traveller. I s'pose you could call me an expert, yeah."

"I don't know your name."

"It's the Doctor."

Felix opened his mouth, then closed it again, frustrated. "An actual Doctor? A doctor of what?"

"Stuff."

"A doctor of stuff?"

"Yeah." The Doctor cocked his head, grinning. "That's me."

Felix gave up. What use was it, anyway, to question the man who had potentially saved him from becoming catfood? He supposed such intelligence had to come with a little insanity.

"Table, boys! I made lasagne. Oh, and Doctor? You can share rooms with Felix, pet."

"I'll take the sofa." Felix muttered quickly.


	4. Kill the beastie!

**This is a short one. Well…short by my usual standards. Also not much action, I'm afraid. Sorry. Lots of the Doctor babbling, though! And that's always fun. **

**This chapter was initially much longer and more action-packed but then it got reeeeally long so I decided to split it. Hence the shortness. BUT on the plus side that means you get a sooner post. So yay for that!**

**I think Felix has gotten a little too assertive here. -kicks him- bad Felix. You're meant to be all meek and shy. -slaps-**

**I LOVE REVIEWS. OKAY?**

**I still don't own Doctor Who. I wish I did. I'd have used blackmail and bribery and heavy-duty chains to ensure that David Tennant had stayed in his role as the Doctor. And yes, there would have been a Felix. For that part, I reckon I might have cast Ewan McGregor. Possibly. I'm open to suggestions on that, actually. **

**There's an idea….okay, so at the bottom of your review for this chapter, I'd totally love it if you'd let me know which actor you would cast as Felix, were he in the series alongside David Tennant. Just for the craic. Thanks bruuuuuvvs.**

"These things are always backed up, there's always, _always _something that someone somewhere's noticed. Something someone somewhere's noticed that could be really, really important. Great big puma, wandering round the highlands? Someone's seen it."

"Well, yeah. It's been a rumour for a while. Apparently." Felix paused. "It's a puma?"

"Was a puma. Which makes it pretty far from home, don't you think, and pretty obvious."

"It _was_ a puma? Um…what's it now, then?"

"Something else. Its nucleotide bases have been completely altered. It's barely even feline."

"Oh."

The Doctor spoke at high speed, never still, never pausing. Felix was growing tired, but the Doctor never did, despite the fact that this particular conversation had persisted for hours.

Felix was hungry, stiff, fatigued from lack of sleep during his night on the sofa, but he did not quit the Doctor's presence. He felt compelled to listen. The Doctor's vocabulary sounded like a textbook at times, but Felix managed to remain intrigued in a way he had never been able to during science classes. The enthusiasm with which the Doctor spoke, so very emphatically, was gripping. Felix was almost transfixed.

"So…what you were saying …about someone having noticed something…you think we should ask around?"

The Doctor grinned. "Now you're getting it!"

"Um…"

"What? What's wrong?"

"How…?"

"How what?"

"Um…you can't just knock on doors, or whatever…"

The Doctor paused in his ceaseless movement. "Come on, Felix! You know this village, there must be somewhere people go to…to socialise, to swap stories."

Felix frowned. "The pub?"

"Brilliant. Let's go."

* * *

It had long been a source of wonder to Felix how such a tiny pub in such a tiny village could remain so constantly full of people. There were barely enough inhabitants in the village to scrape the corners of the little building, yet it never seemed sparsely populated. It was always teeming with villagers, with noise, and with the Doctor's prey; gossip.

"So, Felix. Your party."

"Not really." Felix shifted. "M'not good at this."

"At what, at talking?" Felix wasn't sure if the Doctor was scoffing at him. The tone was enough to heat his neck a little, and he scolded himself for being so affected by the words of a man he had previously thought to be a lunatic. "You work in a coffee shop!"

"I'm good at making coffee."

The Doctor gave a sigh, throwing his eyes up to the ceiling. "I'll talk, then."

Felix stood for a moment, feeling slightly useless, as the Doctor's charismatic presence was met with some bemusement.

"Felix MacArthur." The voice behind him was aged, creaking and familiar. Felix turned.

"Mr. McNeill." He nodded awkwardly, attempting to be respectful. Beady black eyes told him he'd failed.

"Who's your friend?"

"The Doctor."

"Medical man, is he?"

"Yeah."

"And he's with you?" McNeill's tone was acidic. Felix averted his eyes. McNeill was so traditional that he could barely function; intolerance emanated from him in waves.

"He's a friend."

McNeill sneered a little, then seemed to half-shrug. He tilted his head as though to beckon to Felix, in a way that suggested that he felt he was bestowing a great honour on the young barista.

McNeill was by no means the oldest or wisest in the village, but he seemed to consider himself something of a local 'elder'. In reality, his only talents were those of throwing his weight around, sheep-farming and having a relatively thorough knowledge of the village's current affairs.

Felix paused in his thoughts. Current affairs was really a posh word for gossip.

Forcing himself to be much braver than was natural for his usual meek persona, he sat on a barstool next to McNeill.

"Can I buy you another scotch?"

He was eyed sourly, but received a curt nod. "If you must."

Felix obliged. "Um. So…Mr McNeill—"

"Your friend, he's staying with ye?"

"Um. Yeah."

"So your nan's met him?"

"Yeah, she has."

"And she's happy to let him stay?"

"She likes him."

"That's not what I asked."

Felix paused. "She made him dinner. Lasagne. I reckon she was happy enough. And…he's here on…business."

"Business. I see."

"Um…" Felix shifted. "I was wondering if I could ask you something."

"I cannae stop ye."

"Right." Now, how best to phrase his question? McNeill was not an approachable man, and Felix was no good at this. The 26-year-old usually tried to keep out of conversation with the well-weathered farmer. Speaking to him directly, out of _choice,_ was very much like walking freely into the lion's pit. "Um…I was wondering…" he stuttered a little, still toying with how to approach such an unorthodox topic. "How's the livestock? No…no trouble?"

McNeill shrugged, looking somewhat bemused. "All fine. All healthy. Couple of deaths."

"Deaths?" Felix bit his lip for a second. "What killed it? Another…another animal? Something wild…maybe?"

A stony glare was bestowed upon him. "This Doctor. What sort of business is he on?"

"Um…kind of…investigative?"

McNeill leaned back a little, and then took a hearty sip of scotch.

"Might've known. He's after the cat." The scotch glass hit the table with unnecessary force. "He cannae have it."

"Um…have it, sir?"

"It's mine."

"It…belongs to you?"

"Aye. It's mine. Mine to kill."

Felix stared for a moment or two. "To kill? You're going to…to what, shoot it?"

"Aye, MacArthur. Shoot it dead."

"But…why?"

"Why?" McNeill rolled his eyes. "Come on, MacArthur. I knew you were a wee bit soft, but…that thing's a _hazard_. It's damaged the livestock! I cannae have it on my land."

Felix said nothing. Privately, he wondered why on earth nobody had possessed the rationality of thought to call in an expert, a scientist, a charity…anyone. He wondered why McNeill's first instinct at seeing something out-of-the-ordinary was to ensure that it no longer existed, through violent methods. To Felix, this seemed like a somewhat close-minded way of seeing the world.

But then again, what did he know?

"The Doctor's not here to kill it. He's just…interested."

"Interested, that's me!" Felix jumped. It was as though the Doctor had some kind of sonar, bouncing back to him when it hit a potential informant. "Hallo. I'm the Doctor."

McNeill seemed to have no qualms about shaking the Doctor's hand and introducing himself, which suggested that his former hostility had been employed only to irk Felix. This was disheartening.

"Lovely to meet you! I love a man with a 'mc'. There's something just so…oh, just brilliant. 'Mac', that's good too. Mc. Mcmcmc. Lovely sound. Mcccc."

"…Quite."

"Sorry, getting distracted. Brain's too full, can't concentrate on anything at all. You were about to tell my good friend Felix about the beastie that's been creeping about?"

The highland accent crept into the Doctor's voice quite subtly, as he did quite a convincing impression of the aforementioned 'beastie'. McNeill seemed not to notice, but Felix eyed his companion, somewhat disconcerted.

"Aye, I was that." McNeill seemed to be adjusting to the situation with ease, particularly once the Doctor had surreptitiously paid for a refill of his scotch glass. "It's a menace," he began, lifting his glass for a hearty gulp. "Prowling where it doesn't belong. Tearin' up good, healthy livestock till it's no use for anything. And I'm not the only one, Doctor. There's been other's who've had a kill or two. Won't stand for it. Not me."

"Oh, quite right. Tell me, Mr McNeill…have you actually seen it?"

"I have."

"You have?"

"With these very eyes."

"And what did you think?"

"Think, Doctor?" McNeill frowned.

The Doctor nodded. "You must've thought it was strange, no? It's not just a cat, Mr McNeill, I think you know that."

"I…well…" McNeill seemed to be blustering somewhat. Inwardly, Felix was doing a celebratory dance; whatever the Doctor had previously done to make things difficult for him, all was forgiven now. Seeing McNeill so very stumped was completely worth an unpleasant encounter with Bobby. "It doesn't belong here."

"That's all?"

"I…well…" McNeill shook his head. "I only want it away from my land, Doctor."

"Tell me more about it. Did you notice anything strange about it?" The Doctor's gaze was serious. Felix stayed quiet, glancing between the two men, intrigued by the way in which the Doctor seemed able to command respect from the man who respected no-one. He wondered how long it had taken to develop such effective and captivating charisma.

"I cannae think what to tell you, Doctor." McNeill paused. "You'd never believe me."

"Oh, I think I would." The Doctor glanced at Felix for a moment, then back at McNeill, a wraith of a smile touching the corners of his lips. "Trust me."

"Well…" McNeill leaned forwards. He seemed to have totally forgotten that Felix was even present. He spoke only to the Doctor. "Between you and me, I'm not even sure that thing's an ordinary wildcat. Actually…I'm sure it isn't."

"And what do you think it is?"

"Something ungodly."

* * *

"Are you saying we should go after it?"

"Good to know you're keeping up. Although I didn't say we, you can do whatever you like."

"I want to come." The words were out quickly. Felix marvelled at how impulsive he had suddenly come. It had finally happened. Bobby'd pushed him right over the edge. He'd gone mad.

The Doctor paused in his movement. He looked so unusual. Audrey MacArthur's tartan-covered living room seemed to be a place very much of stillness, but the Doctor was a constantly-moving entity, on the verge of exploding with life and seemingly always about to _go _somewhere.

"Could be dangerous."

Felix shrugged, feigning that he felt blasé about the whole concept of danger. "Then you shouldn't go on your own."

"You'd have to do as I told you. I know what I'm doing. You don't."

"Okay."

The Doctor eyed him for a moment, and then grinned. "Good to have you aboard, Felix."

Felix half-smiled, unsure as to what that particular statement entailed. The comradeship was detectable in the Doctor's expression, however, and it was somewhat heart-warming. He wasn't used to being valued by anyone at all, and something within Felix seemed to hold the Doctor's opinion in high regard, for whatever mad reason.

"So…" continued the Doctor. "We're not out to hurt it, remember that. We are _not _hurting. But…we also don't know what it's capable of."

"What is it?"

"Haven't the foggiest." The Doctor shrugged blithely. "But I'm pretty sure it started off as a feline, an ordinary, Earth cat. _Puma, _to be precise."

"Earth… ?" Felix stared for a moment or two. "You say that like…like it could be…"

"What?"

"You know…"

"What?"

"From somewhere else. Not Earth."

"Yeah."

"Like…an alien?"

"Yeah."

"That's…"

"Yeah." The Doctor eyed him. "Too much?"

Felix paused. He'd been as present as anyone during the frequent and increasingly incredible events of the past few years. After leaving university, the world had slowly gone mental, with spaceships and aliens and endless paranormal activity, which Felix had watched from behind his coffee shop counter with mild incredulity. The concept of life beyond Earth was pretty passé these days. It was taken for granted. "No, I'm okay. Go on."

"Good man." The Doctor slapped his shoulder, and Felix was thrown slightly off-balance. "Just remember that this is observation. We're not out to cause it any damage."

"Doctor?" Felix said the name without thinking, but the Doctor gave a little half-smile, registering the use of his 'name'.

"Mm-hm?"

"Why are you doing this? Is it…like…a professional thing?"

"Ohh…sort of…a hobby, I suppose…" the Doctor answered vaguely.

"So this isn't your job, or anything?"

"Well…you could call it that too. It's what I do."

"But…are you like…an expert?"

"You could definitely say that."

Felix nodded, not doubting this. He opened his mouth to question more, but the Doctor, ever-elusive, began to speak again.

"Just one thing, before we go. Stick with me."

"Got it." Felix nodded.


	5. Welcome aboard

**Gotta admit, this is ending up much longer than I expected it to. This chapter is actually the very end of what would have been my first chapter after the prologue. Yup. Chapters 2-5 were initially intended to be one chapter…but Felix just takes so **_**feckin' **_**long to think about stuff!**

**Reviews are very welcome. I particularly like reviews from Felix fans xD oh, and if you want to ship anything involving any of the characters, OC or otherwise, I ain't gonna stop you. I'm saying this now, 'cause there'll be new babies entering eventually, and I'd be VERY interested to hear who you ship with who, in the context of this story only (all OTPs aside).**

**THANK YOU ALL. –megasnug- **

The chill air, as opposed to being discouraging, was somewhat stimulating to Felix's nerves, provoking a sensation not dissimilar to the effect of adrenaline.

He was not unprepared this time. He walked alongside the Doctor and shone out a path with the bright white light of his heavy-duty torch. This was quite different from his wearing cat-search of the night before; tonight he felt urged on by the sense that he was on a _mission_. An investigation in the dead of night.

On the most part, Felix usually made quite an effort not to get carried away by fanciful ideas of adventure, or of romance, or of heroism, or of any of those silly, romantic things which so very often wormed their way into his head. He was far too susceptible to them, and knew very well that they were unhealthy and likely to compromise his sanity, his career and his emotional well-being.

But this was too much to resist. It was as though the very air which lingered around the Doctor was quite infused with adventure. To an ever-fantasizing, lonely, emotionally-dissatisfied mind such as Felix's to step into that air was to be immediately seduced. He couldn't help himself. Besides, he had a whole week off work left to go; that was plenty of time in which to regain one's sanity before having to return to the coffee shop.

The Doctor sauntered beside him quite casually, his hands tucked leisurely in his pockets, his coat giving him a somewhat avian silhouette in the darkness. Felix tried to follow suit, but try as he might he could not muster up the calmness required to stroll as the Doctor did.

After a moment or two of growing unease, he spoke up, only just loudly enough to be audible over the wind.

"Doctor?" He wished it were possible to speak more quietly and still be heard. He would surely warn away the cat before it came within metres of their presence.

"Mm?"

"Shouldn't we…" He paused. "Should I put this out?" He indicated the torch.

"Why would you do that? You'd fall and break your neck and then we'd never find our beastie."

"Won't it see us coming?"

"Yeah, I imagine it will."

"Won't we frighten it off?"

"Doubt it."

One this note, Felix fell quiet again, as the implications behind these words settled. They were not the hunters; they were the hunted. Moreover, they were the bait of their own prey. The Doctor had failed to mention that a major part of the plan to observe the beast was to lure it with their own flesh.

Another concerning notion was that the Doctor seemed to think that the creature was relatively malignant, and had the intention of causing them harm…or, he at least thought that it was more likely to attack than to run away. Either way, Felix began to feel slightly exposed. But….despite this, he also felt the beginnings of mild exhilaration; it was not often that he took risks. The thought that he was actually being quite daring, quite reckless, was not an unpleasant one.

"Doctor!" He stopped suddenly, staring.

A flash. He had seen a flash of light in the undergrowth, a reflection from his own torch, blinking back at him as though bounced off cat's eyes in the road.

Felix looked to the Doctor, whose posture and wide, expectant eyes told that he too had caught the flash. A pinstriped arm raised, and he put a finger to his lips, as Felix nodded slowly, heart pounding like a bass drum from the inside of a club.

There was silence, aside from the gentle, rustling sound of the softly rushing wind. Then, after a moment or two of stillness, another sound could be heard; a throaty sort of whining, a rumbling noise coming from the very spot at which both the Doctor and Felix were staring.

Felix felt the Doctor's touch on his upper arm, urging him to move cautiously backwards. His steps were painfully slow and apprehensive, and quite synchronised with the Doctor's, his frame bent forwards in an instinctively wary position. His breathing quivered ever so slightly. The Doctor's hand remained on him as though to keep him in place, Felix thought, remembering the earlier warning to remain close by. It was needless; he felt no inclination to leave. He knew that he would be incapable of such bravery were he not near the Doctor.

The growling increased in volume, vigour and aggressiveness. Without thought, both Felix and the Doctor's steps quickened, and Felix found himself stumbling, supported only by the Doctor's tightening hand.

"Felix…" came his voice, hushed and worryingly urgent. "We might need to run in a—ohh."

Felix could practically feel the Doctor deflate as his breath rushed from him in awe, but not fear. His hand fell back to his side, and in response Felix shifted marginally closer, instinct telling him that the Doctor's nearby presence was synonymous with safety.

The creature had crept boldly into the light of the barista's torch, huge, black and bristling. Its stature was unmistakeably offensive; teeth bared, a gravelly, whining growl rumbling from deep within.

Felix's self-preservation instincts told him to pursue a rapid exit, but he remained where he was, somewhat fascinated. This larger, more exotic and more dangerous-looking creature bore similarities to the mutated Tinkerbell; most notably its artificial-looking blue eyes. They glowed threateningly, but showed no emotion, no hint even of animalistic instinct, no sign that the feline had an independent, living mind, as Felix knew it _must _do. Those eyes, he thought, were much more like the lights of a machine than features of a living, breathing creature.

The Doctor seemed similarly transfixed, gazing with wide, exhilarated eyes. However, his expression soon turned to something more unhappy, and was suddenly tinged with a pained, profound pity.

"What's been done to you?" He murmured.

Responsively, the cat padded a pace or two closer. The pair moved as one, with haste. It followed.

"Doctor, I think we should—"

"Yeah. Yeah we should." The Doctor stole one last glance at the thing, whose pace had quickened accordingly, before turning, dragging Felix with him. "Run!"

Felix was a regular runner. He was subject to relatively regular bursts of hypochondria, but did not have a high enough salary to invest in such a luxury as a nutritious and well-balanced diet. To compensate for this, he made it his goal to fulfil the exercise requirement, at the very least, of a healthy lifestyle. As he powered into a sprint, clutching the Doctor's hand (it was preventing him from over-balancing and falling into a state of ungainly collapse), he had never been gladder of this fact. It was a little different to be running _from _something, but the principle was the same. One foot in front of the other. Don't stop. Don't fall over.

The growling was vicious, yet still possessing that same grating, whining metallic edge which was sp unnerving. Felix thought that had it sounded less like a machine and more like a raging, snarling beast, driven on by instinct, then it might actually be marginally less frightening. The sound that pursued him was not only aggressive, it was _purposeful, _engineered, very nearly intelligent.

Suddenly, the Doctor's hand was no longer in his own. Felix stumbled slightly, his stomach squeezing in on itself with fear.

"Keep running!" Came the Doctor's voice.

Later, Felix was unsure what possessed him to disobey these wise instructions. Certainly not instinct, for that was telling him incessantly to continue running until he could run no more. He liked to think it might have been _conscience_, but realistically he didn't think that it had been anything quite so noble.

Regardless of sensible reasoning, he turned, coming to a halt.

He was no longer being pursued. For a moment, Felix couldn't find the Doctor. In his left hand, he registered the absence of his torch, but couldn't remembering having dropped it. He squinted desperately through the darkness, trying to quieten his ragged breathing and manic heart so that he might form some kind if clear thought.

Ah. There was the beast, prowling towards a clump of foliage. And there was the Doctor, splayed in the grassy clump, doing a kind of crab-scuttle backwards, but showing surprisingly little fear. Only wonder touched his features.

Felix charged mindlessly, registering that if something was not done, then the Doctor was soon to be torn to pieces by a supernatural puma. He did not know what he hoped to achieve by his actions, but forced himself suddenly between the cat and the Doctor, causing himself to become its prime target.

"Felix! What are you doing?"

"I don't know!"

The Doctor manoeuvred himself in front of Felix, brandishing his buzzing tube.

"Will that help?"

"No. Come on." The Doctor yanked Felix to his feet, but it seemed there was nowhere to run; backwards was a steep-ish drop down a cliff-like face of the hill.

The creature continued to prowl, and the Doctor buzzed on, moving slowly backwards.

The cat pressed its forequarters to the ground, keeping its blank, glowing eyes on the helpless pair.

"Doctor?" Felix hissed.

A sudden bang rang out. Felix fell backwards, shoved by the Doctor, who had cried out immediately;

"_No!"_

Felix slumped in the grass for several moments, winded, but happy to still be living and breathing and not cat food. The situation, however, was somewhat incomprehensible to him. The great, snarling beast which had only moments before seemed about to take his life was nowhere to be seen. The Doctor had sprung away and was now crouched unhappily in the grass, examining a mound of lifeless fur and claws and jagged teeth.

A metre or two away, McNeill looked on. He proudly wielding a dangerous-looking firearm.

"You killed it."

Felix had only known the Doctor for a very short space of time, but already had a variety of adjectives in his repertoire with which he might describe the strange, suited man. However, until this moment, 'angry' had not been one. Nor had 'cold', 'frightening' or 'dangerous'. The Doctor had seemed a mysterious presence, but a benign one.

He seemed anything but benign now. He strode purposefully, furiously towards McNeill, who recoiled slightly but remained defiant.

"I could have fixed it. I could have made it better." He hissed. "What gave you the right to do that?"

"I…well…" McNeill reddened angrily, drawing himself to his full height. "I've a duty to my livestock, Doctor, and a duty to the town."

The Doctor looked scathing, hurt, and furious. "That creature was torn from its natural habitat against its will, changed into something it didn't want to be and then dumped somewhere cold, somewhere strange. I could have saved it, but you went and tore away the very last thing it had; its life."

"It would've killed you!"

The Doctor did not reply. Instead, he turned away, crouching once again at the creature's side. "Felix."

Felix gathered his mind hastily and then similarly re-arranged his limbs so that he was standing, moving to the Doctor's side.

"Yeah?"

"Go in my pocket, there's a syringe." The Doctor muttered, his own hands busy on the corpse, parting fur and inspecting claws with traces of inexplicable tenderness.

Felix delved in the cavernous pocket.

"This?"

"Yeah. Thanks." The Doctor took the syringe without looking at Felix, but seemed to detect the hanging question in spite of the sorrow which had so suddenly engulfed his person. "I can't save it now, but I can get a DNA sample. Might be able to find out how it got like this, and if there are others."

The pinstriped figure stood without warning. Felix hastened to follow. He did not speak; the Doctor's lingering fury was evident, and showed no signs of dwindling. They walked past McNeill in silence, and headed for the village.

* * *

The little community seemed somewhat dead to the world so late at night. There was no noise, no light, no signs of life to be seen anywhere. Despite this, Felix noticed with relief as he jogged to keep pace, that the Doctor's sorrow seemed to have melted somewhat; enough to provoke bravery enough for Felix to pose a question.

"Where're we going?"

"I have…" The Doctor paused. For a moment, he seemed to have an internal battle. "Sort of a…" He shook his head from side to side in indecision. "Ohh, what the…" He sighed with resignation. "I've got a spaceship."

"…a metaphorical spaceship, or…?"

"Nope, a spaceship. Completely functional. Makes whooshy sounds."

"You…" Felix took a moment or two to remind himself of a few important things; how to walk, to breathe and verbalise thoughts. "That's…"

"Yeah."

"That's…pretty cool."

"It's a great chat-up line." The Doctor winked. "Hello, fancy coming to see my big blue box?"

"Blue box…?"

The Doctor pointed. Felix frowned.

There was indeed a big blue box, quite undeniably. A 1960's police box, all blue and retro and surprisingly unobtrusive, tucked away as it was behind the butchers'.

The Doctor smiled knowingly (annoyingly) and flourishingly produced a key, proceeding to then unlock the door and step inside. Felix shifted a little, staying where he was. His earlier suspicions in regards to the validity of the Doctor's sanity returned with a figurative bang.

"You coming?"

The Doctor's voice echoed unnervingly, as though from within a hall, as opposed to a little tin box.

Felix approached slowly.

"Felix…?"

He took a breath and stretched out a hand. The door felt warm, and not at all like wood. It stood ajar, and from within yellow light glowed out into the darkness.

Felix pushed the door open. Breath gushed out of him in wonder at the cavernous space that was inside the tiny box, and the sense of glory that emanated from the scene. There was a beauty, a hypnotic intricacy about the glowing, humming machinery, the mismatched, almost rustic-looking décor, and most of all in that eerily radiant pillar that stretched up the centre of the room.

"It's…" Felix breathed.

The Doctor grinned proudly.

"It's…it's smaller on the outside…?"

The Doctor's grin faded. "What?"

"Um…I said…"

"Yes, yes, yes. I heard, but…but…" The Doctor's features contorted. "It's _bigger on the inside. _Doesn't that kind of…well…take precedence?"

Felix shuffled. "I noticed that too."

The Doctor seemed somewhat incredulous for a few moments further, but then beckoned Felix in with vigorous hand gestures.

The barista stepped into the box with a speeding heart, his breath slightly shallower than usual, but his composure remaining mostly intact.

"Come on; no time to waste, close the door!"

The door swung shut behind Felix of its own accord anyway. The Doctor began something of a dance; he moved with erratic grace around the centrepiece of the room, _doing things; _flicking switches and pulling levers and adjusting various dials and knobs. It seemed almost random, manic, but there was quite evident accuracy in it

"Felix MacArthur, welcome to the TARDIS."

It was all very clear now. The Doctor was a _virtuoso _(hence the seeming madness), and this 'TARDIS' was his first instrument. Of course.

It was like watching a violinist play a concerto, the most impossible of concertos, and seeing how they became one with the wood and the strings and the bow. The Doctor moved in delicate synchronisation with sounds and flashes and hums from the machinery, until suddenly the room began to _sing._

Felix stumbled and fell. The Doctor had not forewarned that there would be turbulence.

"Are we…are we _flying?_" His voice was both louder and more fragile than he had intended. The Doctor did not reply, but grinned a grin which was not at all telling. Felix was further disconcerted, yet simultaneously exhilarated by all this sudden, glorious madness.

How far away the coffee shop seemed now.

The TARDIS halted, juddering, letting out an eerie screech. Felix did not waste time in scrambling back up onto his feet, into a vaguely upright position.

"Is it always like that?" He could not tell if the breathlessness was from shock or excitement, but either way he had to admit that he relished the sensation of adrenaline tainting his bloodstream.

"Umm." The Doctor gave him an I-make-no-apologies look. "Yeah."

Felix eyed the door. "Out there…isn't the highlands anymore?"

"Nope." The Doctor grinned. "Take a look."

Amazed at his own composure, Felix approached the door. He looked once over his shoulder, back at the insane, spaceship-owning, pinstripe-wearing man. He received a blithe grin.

_ What the hell is going on?_

The thought hit Felix quite suddenly. He was surprised it had taken him so long. It seemed that years of training himself to be cynical (to get rid of the over-sensitive bloke he'd been at uni) and wary (so that he could stop being such a fucking pushover) had been a waste. He was still letting himself get caught up in the moment. Letting the situation seduce him.

There were several things wrong with the state of affairs he was in. Firstly, Felix had recently encountered a beastly, mutated cat. Secondly, he'd let a strange man into his grandmother's home. Then he'd let himself get swept into a real, proper, storybook adventure. Now he was on a spaceship. And, finally, the most unnerving thing of all…none of this was actually _bothering _him. In fact, the whole, mental ordeal was filling him with the most _delicious _intrigue. He didn't think he'd ever been quite so very elated. These things just _didn't happen to him._

On the other side of that door, there could be anything. Anything in the entire universe.

Obviously, he realised he was skipping the obvious questions. He barely knew the Doctor, and he certainly didn't know who he actually was. He didn't how the strange man had acquired a 'TARDIS'. He didn't even have any proof that it was a spaceship. He'd just taken the word of a virtual stranger.

Yet, he trusted the Doctor. He had no good reason to do so, but he did. With every particle that made him, Felix trusted the Doctor.

He shoved the door with conviction. It swung open.

Felix worked very, very hard to prevent his face from crumpling with absolute dismay.

"Here we are, then!" The Doctor appeared at his side, grinning at the view. "Lift home. Trains are boring, why take a train when you've got a friend with a spaceship?"

Felix nodded a dazed nod. The hateful coffee shop leered mockingly at him.

He'd been a complete idiot to think that this adventure had been the first of many to come. Where had such a thought even derived from? This world, full of strange things and mutated creatures and spaceships and madness- it was the Doctor's life, clearly. Why would he allow boring, sensitive, coffee-stained Felix into it? He'd had no right to expect anything. He'd had no right to even contemplate such a thing.

"Felix? What's wrong?"

Shit. Felix blinked. He had thought he was well-practiced in keeping his emotions off his face. Maybe he wasn't really all that good at it. Maybe those around him just ignored any signs that became visible in his features. "What do you mean?"

"I mean what I said; what's wrong?"

Felix gave a half-hearted shrug.

"Oh, sorry," exclaimed the Doctor. "I wasn't sure if you lived close by, if you like I'll drop you closer…" he was back at the controls. "Just re-set the… and boost the… all right! Where can I drop you, sir?"

Felix was shaking his head, trying to package up all his disappointment into yet another un-open-able box deep within him. "S'fine. It's fine. I'll walk."

The Doctor's grin faded. "It's something else."

"No. No, nothing important. Seriously…"

"Oh…" the Doctor tilted his head back a little, his eyes widening ever so slightly in realisation. Felix flushed.

"I'm fine."

"You didn't think I was taking you home."

"Yeah, I did. That's what I thought you were doing. Taking me home. Um. I don't know what you mean."

"And you're…you're what, disappointed?"

Felix said nothing. It was mortifying that his greed for more adventure should be realised, his imposing desire to further trespass upon the Doctor's company.

The Doctor seemed to change. His features grew ever so slightly wary, his voice guarded…yet somehow it seemed to be appealing to Felix, questioning him. "You wanted…to come with me?"

"I don't even know where you're going."

A smile danced on the edges of the Doctor's lips. "Yeah, but you wanted to come."

Gritting his teeth, Felix remained silent. He was, of course, being laughed at now. He recognised that. He kept his eyes to the ground.

The Doctor's constantly fluctuating expression changed once again. "I'm not…_wellll…_I only assumed…I mean, if you _did _want…"

"What?" Felix frowned, bewildered.

"I mean…I sometimes do. Have people with me, I mean. If they want."

"Oh." Was this being rubbed in his face? 'I take people with me sometimes, but you're going home lol'. That figured; he hadn't taken the Doctor for a _cruel _kind of man, but he guessed that it was just too alluring for anyone, even the kindest of souls, to refrain from poking fun at someone like Felix.

"I only mean…you know, if you didn't want to go home…you could…"

Finally, Felix's mouth parted in stunned comprehension. The physicality of the sudden hope he experienced was quite astonishing; it seemed to brutally thump him in the chest. "I could?"

"Well. You know. Only if you wanted. I'd…I'd understand if you didn't."

"No! No, I do. I do."

"You do?"

"I…yeah."

"Great!" The Doctor grinned boyishly, his eyes bright.

"You…don't mind?"

"No! No, definitely not! I mean. Well. I s'pose…I'd like the company."

Felix could not keep the incredulity from colouring his voice, just slightly. "_My _company?"

"Yeah, why not?" The Doctor seemed confused. "I mean…only if you want to come. Oh…" He paused. "It can be dangerous, I should tell you that first."

"How dangerous?"

"Sometimes I lose people."

"Okay…" Felix nodded slowly. "I…that's okay."

"Yeah?" The smile was back, and somewhat infectious. Felix wanted to smile with him, and not stop to be sensible, to consider all that might be wrong with the situation.

"Come with you where?" He forced himself to ask, ignoring the urge to shut the TARDIS door and forget all the more rational concerns he should be having. "Is this just…what you do? You…you, what, fly a spaceship around? For a living?"

"Something like that, yeah. I travel. Through space and time."

"_Time?_"

"Yup."

"That's insane."

"It's great fun, too."

"Yeah…" Felix shook his head in disbelief. What the hell. "Yeah, I bet it is."

The Doctor beamed. "You'll come, then?" He paused again. "I was serious about it being dangerous."

"I…yeah, I know." Felix shifted slightly on the spot. "Better than making coffee, though."

"Oh, yes."

Felix felt his own lips curving a little into what was probably his first non-fake, non-customer service smile in months. His exhilaration persisted, pulsing.

He closed the TARDIS door, relishing the experience of shutting out the view of the coffee shop in a gesture of monumental defiance. _Suck on that, Bobby._

"Felix." Grinned the Doctor. "Allons-y."


	6. Time Lord

**Shorter than usual. For some reason, this was a difficult chapter to write. It's a little uneventful, I know. I'm sorry.**

**Felix seems to be getting more and more daring. Perhaps it's the Doctor's influence. Perhaps it's simply the fact that he's away from Bobby. Personally, I think he's coping rather well with all this drama.**

**Apologies for the delay. I've been beyond busy. At the moment, there's an essay that I should really be writing, but I'm procrastinating. Just for you. Feel loved.**

* * *

The Doctor's dance increased in tempo, and Felix was transfixed. Dance had always been appealing to him; he had always liked to watch things that moved beautifully, like fire and trapeze artists. The Doctor, although un-choreographed and slightly manic, surpassed those things in beauty. He was simply gorgeous to watch.

"_Bigger, _Felix. I need somewhere bigger."

"Bigger?"

The Doctor brandished his DNA sample. "There's a lab on the TARDIS, but I just need somewhere…bigger."

"Do you know somewhere like that?"

"Oh, of course I do." The Doctor grinned. "But if I know it then I've been before and where's the fun in that?"

"So you're going to…what, put it on autopilot or something?"

"I trust her." The Doctor slowed slightly to run a forefinger along a contour of the TARDIS. He then yanked a lever, and the ship sprang to life. This time, Felix managed to anchor himself in place, hooking an arm around one of the pillars. He was pleased to note that the Doctor had to make similar endeavours to remain upright; this was clearly standard TARDIS procedure.

When they juddered to a halt once more, the Doctor looked just like an overexcited child; his eyes glittering in a way that made Felix partly envy his joy and partly share it.

"Come on!" The Doctor bounced to the door, and then turned to grin at Felix. "Ready?"

Felix hastened over. "Yeah." He worked to keep his voice calm, but got the impression that this was a failed mission.

The Doctor stood aside. Felix eyed him for a moment, then reached for the door.

He closed his eyes as he stepped out of the TARDIS, wanting to relish the moment, the feeling of knowing he could be anywhere in the whole world (the whole universe, even). Later, he realised what an idiotic idea that had been; he could have blundered his way into anything at all (like a wall or a bottomless pit), but he was fortunate enough that when he opened his eyes, the scene with greeted him seemed unthreatening.

The room sparkled a clean, surgical white, and resembled what one might expect to see in a secret, military-guarded government facility for hushed up experiments, only bigger and emptier.

The Doctor seemed pleased. "Flashy." He remarked. "And definitely big. Should do the trick. Ooh, and look at all this stuff!" He jogged happily over to examine various pieces of professional-looking equipment. Felix was strongly reminded of the sight of a 6-year-old in a sweetshop, and smiled.

"Where are we?" He forced himself to ask the obvious question, desperate to know but unwilling to betray signs of ignorance.

"Hmm." The Doctor whipped out his buzzer once again, putting it to the neck of a flask which contained the remnants of something bubbling and grey-ish. He frowned. "I'd say…not too far into your future. Not Earth. Technology's not human, science isn't from your part of the Galaxy for a long while yet."

Felix said nothing, dizziness rapidly beginning to submerge him. "I've never been off Earth before." He mumbled stupidly.

The Doctor grinned, and then raised an arm to point. "There's a window. Go on. Have a peek."

Somewhat tentative, Felix approached. He peered out. The sight did nothing for his already fragile balance. He stumbled back a pace, overcome by disbelief. The Doctor's hand appeared on his shoulder; a support.

"We're in space…" he mumbled. "We're in _space._"

The Doctor grinned. "Yes we are!"

"Wow." Murmured Felix. "Like…wow."

He took a breath, and leaned close to the little porthole again. It was like a picture. Blackness and stars and ethereal beauty. Felix laughed quietly. "I'm in space." He frowned. "This is a spaceship, then?"

The Doctor nodded. "Yup. Empty, though."

"How do you know?"

"Sonic told me." The Doctor brandished his buzzy thing.

"What is that thing?" Felix eyed it with interest. He'd begun to simply assume that it was some kind of all-purpose magic wand.

"Sonic screwdriver."

"Screwdriver?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

The Doctor frowned. "Well, why not? I was bored."

"Oh." Felix reprimanded himself; the Doctor's methods of amusing himself were probably far superior to his own boredom-relieving techniques, which included playing lonely, Jeremy Kyle-themed drinking games in his flat or watching Romeo and Juliet, simply to laugh and marvel at the scene in which Leonardo di Caprio appears to wipe his dribbling nose on Juliet, shortly before committing suicide. "Um. Is it telling you anything else?"

The Doctor paused. "I was wrong, there _are _other life forms, but they barely register. It's as though everything that makes them alive has…well, gone to sleep. Or…" Something seemed to grab the attention of those never-calm brown eyes. "Oh."

"What?"

"This is a Judoon ship."

"How can you tell?" Felix paused. "And what's a…thing?"

The Doctor reached out to one of the lab counters and picked up a reddish, tube-like device, fatter and sturdier-looking than the sonic screwdriver. "This is a Judoon translator, that's how I can tell. And a Judoon is...well." The Doctor wrinkled his nose. "They look like rhinos."

"Rhinos?"

"Yeah. Well. Kind of, yeah."

"Are they…I mean, are there any…on the ship?"

"Not anymore, no. It's abandoned, or there'd be someone manning this stuff." The Doctor gestured to the various bits of in-progress experiment. "Plenty of it could be volatile. They're all about protocol, the Judoon, wouldn't just leave this, not unless they'd had to evacuate."

"But…" Felix paused. "You said there was stuff on board…? Living stuff?"

"Prison ship."

"What?"

"It's a prison ship. The prisoners should be somewhere, confined." The Doctor's expression darkened, almost undetectably. "I suppose they'll come back for them. Must've sedated them before they left. They use powerful sedatives, enough to basically slow down life processes. That's why the sonic barely picks them up."

Felix marvelled. He wondered if secretly, the Doctor was inventing all this for show. But no- it was all too ludicrous to be a lie; something so far-fetched could only be true. He was suddenly struck by the concept that there were others, other living things aboard the ship. Fearful excitement flared within him.

"What…what kind of prisoners do they have? Like…" He paused. "Other…other Judoon?"

"Nah. The Judoon are basically inter-galactic police."

Felix was tempted to snort with laughter. _Inter-galactic._ "So…so there could be…anything?"

"Pretty much. Could be all sorts on here." The Doctor grinned. "Go and explore, if you like. Should be safe enough, if they're all locked up and sedated."

"You're…not coming?"

He raised his sealed test-tube- "Busy. Don't know when our mates'll show up. Besides…" His mouth twisted a little. "Not a fan of things in cages. Even criminals."

"Me neither." Felix paused. "Don't like zoos. But…I've never seen aliens."

"Off you go, then. Don't get lost. Don't touch anything if you don't know what it does. Don't let anything out."

* * *

The whole ship hummed erratically, throbbing beneath Felix's feet like an injured living thing. It was most disconcerting; it set his teeth on edge, and clenched up his stomach with nervousness like an angry clutching fist inside of him.

Beneath the anxiety, however, there was an unfamiliar kind of joy. He was in _space_, on a _spaceship,_ with aliens and stars and all the stuff of fantastical, little-boy dreams. He had looked out of a window and seen stars and blackness and streaks of white and colour, just the way you'd expect space to look. The reality of it all was only just beginning to register in his mind, and as it did his chest thumped with an incomprehensible excitement, an irrepressible exhilaration. This was it; his miracle. It had come.

Resolutely, Felix made a mental promise to one day serve the Doctor as many cups of tea as he liked, free of charge. Of course, hot beverages would not be enough to repay him, but it was really all that he had to offer. Aside from his companionship, of course, but Felix was still experiencing an uncomfortable feeling that he had been invited along purely out of condescending pity. The Doctor was undeniably _brilliant; _he was sure to have plenty of remarkable friends. It wasn't as though he might be susceptible to something as mundane as loneliness, Felix thought. He had no real need for the barista's company, and it could surely only be burdensome.

Felix did his best to push aside these thoughts; they were depressing, and he wasn't going to ruin this experience with his signature melancholic mindframe. This kind of thing only ever happened once in a thousand lifetimes, he thought. He was going to make the most of it.

He had barely even strayed from the same corridor as the lab when he encountered the prisoners.

They were in a hallway, filled with pristine tiles and harsh, white lights, panelled and buzzing, like everything on the ship. Sounding discontented. Unsettled. Afraid?

The walls were glass, and behind the glass were things. Living things which Felix did not have names for, and could barely comprehend the existence of. Things of every shape, from humanoid to definitely-not-human-at-all. Most slept, some paced, seeming subdued and dreary. They did not notice Felix, who stood open-mouthed in the doorway.

His breath became shallower. His limbs froze.

He'd accepted the existence of aliens long ago, but being in the same room as a whole array of unnameable, unfathomable beings was very different from watching the little TV in the coffee shop as spaceships sliced into Big Ben, and marvelling at how very strange the world was. He was now required to do more than simply marvel. He needed to actually _comprehend._

He moved cautiously forwards. Here was something which looked like a robot, but _breathed._ Here was a very ordinary-looking goat. Here was a creature that could have slithered straight out of E.T.; bug-eyed and green and long-necked.

Pausing at the window of a creature which seemed human, Felix tilted his head in wonder. It was old, wizened, slightly deformed, but definitely_ like_ a human. He stared. It stirred slightly. It faced away from him. He could see nothing of its face; only the back of its head, covered in wiry hair the colour of storm-threatening clouds.

He sucked in a breath of bleach-scented air, making the decision to slowly approach. He placed a hand on the glass, his breaths slightly fragmented and his touch tremulous.

In a violent, breakneck motion, it turned and slammed its form brutally into the glass. It was not human. Felix crashed backwards into an abandoned trolley of metallic, surgical instruments. The noise echoed spectacularly.

"Felix…?" The Doctor's voice carried from the lab. Felix picked himself up clumsily and exited the hall of creatures with haste, shutting the door behind him. He then walked back down the corridor, forcing himself to catch his breath and not appear a fool.

The Doctor had donned his serious-looking specs and was holding his test-tube up to the bright, artificial light with one hand, dragging the other through his hair and transforming the locks into a manic-looking brown shock of mess. He was quite focused. Felix coughed lightly.

"Felix! Are you alright, what did you break?"

"Nothing." Felix warmed. "Something jumped and I fell over."

The Doctor raised an interested eyebrow. "You found them, then?" He gaze wandered to the door, tinged with temptation.

"There's…there's all sorts." Felix murmured, unable to put into words the insanity of what he had just glimpsed. Real, live, captive aliens.

"I'll bet…" The Doctor gazed for another moment, and then seemed to spring back into vivacity, reaching hastily for a swan-necked flask. "Got to get this done before the Judoon get back. Actually," he paused. "There's a thought. Why'd they leave?" He looked to Felix. "Didn't happen to notice anything odd, did you? In the cells?"

Felix's mouth opened ever so slightly. "Odd…how?"

"Empty cages? Broken glass?"

"No…?"

"Hmm." The Doctor seemed uncharacteristically stumped. He shrugged, returning to his task. "If something jumped, then the sedative's wearing off, so it was temporary. Doesn't give us any clues about the Judoon, though." The Doctor frowned. " S'pose someone just needed them somewhere. We should be safe enough. Stay nearby." He turned away again, resuming his animated, somewhat volatile-seeming endeavours to decipher whatever answers he expected from the DNA.

Felix lurked near a counter at the edge of the clean, bright room, still recovering from his first ever real alien encounter, trying to re-organise all his knowledge about the universe in a way which accommodated this new madness and tamed it to some kind of reasonable sanity.

Noting the barista's discomfort, the Doctor seemed to grind to a halt, test tube in one hand, hair-ruffled into a manic-looking variation of its usual style.

"Felix? What's wrong?" He seemed genuinely bewildered. "Are you sick? You humans do that a lot, don't you, get sick at inconvenient times…please don't be sick, that would be really not helpful…"

"Us humans…?"

"Oh, yeah…you, not me." The Doctor gave a wry little smile, before positioning the test tube over what looked comfortingly similar to an average, everyday Bunsen burner.

"So…you're…"

"Not human, no. Should've mentioned that, really. Sorry."

Felix found this not at all hard to believe, and oddly comforting. The Doctor was not a lunatic. He was an _alien._

"So you're…what?"

"Time Lord." The stress was on the word _time._ _Time_ Lord. The Doctor enunciated carefully, forming the words with precise clarity, despite attempted casualness.

"Sounds…regal."

"Nahh. Not at all. Regal? Me?" The Doctor paused. "Noble, yeah, maybe. Sir Doctor of TARDIS and all that. But not regal. Royal, kingly…nothing like that, no."

"Oh."

Privately, Felix disagreed. As the Doctor returned to his test tube, Felix thought that although he did not look regal in any orthodox manner, there was something about this being which commanded respect, admiration, a kind of instinct to trust, and an unspoken warning to exercise caution.

Perhaps it was his massive charisma, totally disproportionate to his skinny frame, or his obvious intelligence and the silent hint that his mind held things incomprehensible to lesser brains. Maybe it was the air of adventure which lingered around his person, or the promise of danger which he emanated. It was, perhaps, the slight foreboding his presence provoked in Felix's stomach which suggested that the Doctor was something more than a man.

The _Time Lord_ muttered to himself soberly as he continued to augment the test tube in ways Felix could not hope to understand.

The barista moved to sit on the floor, watching with intrigued grey eyes. It was not long before these began to glaze over, and the Doctor's detached voice became a constant and lulling hum, his form a mesmerising, never-still blur. Felix did not resist the call of slumber. His eyes closed of their own accord and his limbs slumped into a happy détente of all movement. The hum of the spaceship filled him, and he was sucked into restful sleep.


	7. CRASH

**I'm sorry for the delay. ****Really, truly sorry.**

**I've been very, very busy, and slightly lacking in muse. Some of these early chapters are quite hard to write. It's difficult to find muse for them. Compared to what's to come, they're quite uneventful. I'm really not happy with this one...I had to drag myself through it. **

**I just have to remind myself that the quicker I write, the sooner I get to my favourite parts.**

**Oh, by the way….**

**Every time I get a review, Felix smiles.**

**This is special, 'cause Felix doesn't smile often, thanks to Bobby and the coffee shop and the disappointment of life in general.**

**So please review.**

"That can't be right. No. No, that's wrong. _Impossible…_"

The harsh light pressed into Felix's eyes like hard palms, and the Doctor's mumbled monologue hummed in his ears, dragging him excruciatingly from his doze.

"Oh, come on. That's ridiculous…_behave."_

There was a loud, sudden clatter. Felix opened his eyes unhappily. The Doctor was manhandling a delicate-looking piece of apparatus, his frustration evident and infected the air around him. Checking his watch, Felix registered that he had been dead to the world for three hours. The Doctor, it seemed evident, had remained as animated as ever during this period of time, and showed no signs of stopping soon.

Felix rose gingerly, stiffness dulling his movement. The Doctor glanced to him once, acknowledging his presence, and then continued to mutter with agitated mania.

After a couple of moments of awkward lingering, Felix slunk towards the door and back out into the buzzing corridor. At the very end of it, directly above the door leading to the prison hall, one lighting panel flickered distractedly. Felix stood still, watching it. He kept his eyes fixed on it until his brain began to ache. He was trying to wake himself, sorely registering the lack of caffeine in his system.

He thought that the ship's hum had changed in frequency; to him, it now seemed higher-pitched, whining. Frantic.

Once again, he found himself wandering towards _that _door, tempted by the memory of the glass cages and their otherworldly inhabitants. He remembered the Doctor's warning not to stray, and pondered this for a very short moment. He decided quickly that should the Time Lord remember his existence and wish to locate him, his whereabouts would be obvious. It wasn't as though he was wandering aimlessly around the ship; he was but a corridor away from the safety of the Doctor's presence.

His entrance into the hall was this time, if possible, even more tentative than before. He flattened his hand against the cool, white metal of the door and pushed, gently, unable to prevent the slight quickening of pulse he experienced.

They were more animated this time; twitching, pulsating. Something made a quiet little keening noise, and Felix was drawn further in by irrepressible intrigue.

They were waking up, it seemed, as the Doctor had foretold. As Felix moved into the prison, he was watched. Uncomfortably, he realised that he didn't know anything about these creatures. He didn't know how conscious they were of him. He had no way of telling how intelligent they were – more so than he, perhaps? That was a possibility. The Doctor certainly was.

He immediately became self-conscious. These were not necessarily primal creatures that just so happened to be from another world; they could easily be civilized members of a far-off society, and here he was staring at them. Felix didn't want to be _rude_, even if they were criminals.

'_Being arrested_,' he reminded himself, '_does not always make someone a bad person.'_

They weren't there to be stared at, he decided resolutely, and turned to leave.

As he did so, something quite startling caught his eye.

He whipped around again, reflexively, and stared.

A shard of glass glinted menacingly back at his. He froze on the spot, shocked at the realisation of his earlier lack of observance; it was one of many which littered an area of floor space, beneath a gaping, jagged emptiness in the cell which had created the mess .

The Doctor's voice sounded loudly in his mind. Violent urgency was provoked in his chest.

"_Empty cages? Smashed cages?"_

The door slammed sonorously shut behind him as he shot back down the corridor, swerving and banging through the doors into the lab. He opened his mouth to speak urgently, but the Doctor's expression was enough to cut him short.

"Time Lord…" he murmered.

Felix stared, uncomprehending, then reminded himself vigorously of his purpose.

"Doctor, there's—"

"It's _Time Lord._ Gallifreyan. The technology that created this."

Felix couldn't quite understand the Doctor's expression as he held up the test tube; it was wild, afraid, bright and shadowed. His eyes shone and his skin warmed passionately.

"I…good? That's…good?" Felix's words came out rushed, rolling into one another like frantic waves. "Doctor, you need to see—"

"You don't understand, this _can't—"_

"_Doctor_! The cells! One of the cells! It's smashed, something got free, it's—"

_CRASH._

Felix jumped. The Doctor's eyes widened.

"Something's loose…" he breathed, seemingly in realisation. "Of course, that's why they left…standard protocol; abandon ship, contain the damage and come back with reinforcement.."

_CRASH._

The Doctor sprang out of his momentary detachment and seemed to rev manically into action.

"_RUUUUUUUUUUUN!"_

Felix felt a theatrical rush of air _whoosh_ past him and hastened to obey the command, adrenaline rushing immediately into his veins.

He careered around several corners behind the Doctor, aware that they were being chased by something dangerous for the second time in twenty-four hours and despite fear positively relishing the strangeness of this.

He was also aware that their pursuer was both larger and quicker-moving than they; the crashes were growing louder and nearer and ever more alarming as they sprinted. The Doctor seemed to realise this, as he grabbed ahold of Felix's sleeve just before changing direction and pulling him quite violently into a small room. He slammed the door shut, seemingly with force from every inch of his being, and pivoted energetically to face Felix.

"Prizes if you can tell me what to do, 'cause I haven't the faintest."

"Um." Felix stared, painfully aware of the nearing crashes. He scanned the room, panic creeping up the walls of his insides. "Um. Hide?"

"Yup, let's go with that." The Doctor's eyes flicked briskly around the room. The Time Lord dashed over to a wardrobe-like cupboard situated in a discreet corner of the room. He sonic-ed at it, and then yanked it open. "C'mon."

It was a relatively tight squeeze. His face about three inches from the Doctor's, Felix wished he could quiet his breathing. He knew his panic must be evident in his breaths, and even in the midst of the danger he was facing he still retained enough self-consciousness to pray for the Doctor not to be aware of his fear.

The Doctor didn't seem at all afraid. He grinned. "Having fun yet?"

Felix smiled weakly back through the dimness. "What is that thing?"

"Dunno. I'd hazard a guess that it's the reason the Judoon left."

The crashing ceased. Felix relaxed slightly, but his relief was coloured by tense confusion. The Doctor put an ear to the door, frowning. He touched gazes with Felix and put one finger to his lips.

Slowly, he allowed the door to sail slowly open. He didn't seem in any hurry to remove himself from the close proximity to Felix with the cupboard inflicted, and Felix was resolutely remaining still; he would do nothing the Doctor didn't, for fear of being crushed/vaporised/disembodied.

The Time Lord surveyed the room with an impressively calm, if curious gaze. He glanced back to Felix and shrugged his shoulders slightly.

The two stepped out. Felix followed the Doctor back across to the door, where they lingered.

"Feeling brave, Felix?"

It seemed that his bracing inhalation of sterilized, bleachy air was taken to mean 'yes', as his companion opened the door and stepped back into the corridor without re-consulting.

_CRASH._

The Doctor did not shout this time; he simply took off, and Felix followed.

This was frightening. He could not deny feeling a degree of terror as he sprinted round various bends, an inch or so behind the Doctor. Exhilaration, however, seemed to outweigh his fear. He positively relished holding the knowledge that he was worlds away from Bobby, from the highlands, from that damned little coffee shop just outside of Leith.

The crashing was growing louder.

"Doctor!" Felix motioned towards a door. The Doctor nodded, running too hard to speak, and swerved. Felix banged the door shut behind them. A painfully bright automatic light flickered on overhead. The two squinted, adjusted quickly, and scanned the room.

"Bad choice, Felix. No cupboards. If it gets in here, we're in trouble."

At this moment, several humanoid, leather-clad rhinos appeared in the room, accompanied by flashes of light and some very sci-fi-sounding '_whoosh' _noises.

"Identification: human." Said the nearest.

Felix stared, his mind grinding quite suddenly to a stunned halt.

_Rhinos, _it informed him, helpfully. _Those are rhinos._

"Identification: non-human. Species: unrecognised. What are you. What are you."

Felix sucked in a lungful of air and forced his brain to kick-start. _Judoon, _he remembered, as one of the creatures leaned menacingly close to the Doctor.

"Ah. Well. See…"

"Classification: threat. The unknown being will be detained."

"Oh…wait, no, you don't _really _want to do that—"

The Judoon began to stomp towards the Doctor.

_CRASH._

Felix tensed, as did the Judoon. One or two of them grunted in a very rhino-like manner, before all of them marched out of the room.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "That was rude."

"What do we do now?" Felix impressed himself with the lack of distress in his voice.

"Get back to the TARDIS."

"But…can we?"

"Oh, c'mon. 'Course we can. I'm clever, and they're distracted. They've got their priorities, they won't worry about us 'till they've caught their prisoner."

Felix paused. "Um. How long do we have, then?"

"I'd say five minutes. C'mon."

Felix had no recollection of the route they had taken through the ship, but the Doctor seemed to recall it perfectly. Either that or they were become more and more lost by the moment. Felix prayed for the former.

His prayers were answered; a _swoosh_ of double doors and they were back in the lab. The Doctor immediately headed for his TARDIS, but Felix heard commotion behind the doors and couldn't resist turning to peer through the reinforced windows.

Judoon swarmed around something _massive, _grey and multi-limbed. It writhed spectacularly, furiously, its giant form pulsating with rage as the Judoon proceeded to attempt to somehow tether it.

"Felix!"

Felix tore away his wondrous eyes. "Coming…" he breathed.

* * *

"I was wrong. I must have been…"

Felix stood awkwardly beside the TARDIS console as the Doctor stared insistently at the test tube as though he could force it to agree with him. The confusion on the Time Lord's face was frightening, but more so the barely detectable hint of fear. Felix watched.

"I don't understand…" he mumbled, slightly loathe to admit this fact.

The Doctor's face was touched by a hint of brooding which made no sense to Felix. "It's just impossible." He shook his head. "But I _saw _it."

The Time Lord shook himself, and turned to his companion, his expression changing quickly to one of positivity. "We can find out, though! If I just-" he broke off. "What's wrong?" He frowned.

Felix shook his head, trying to disguise the fact that he could barely see. He supposed that it had been a little ridiculous to expect the twenty-four hours of madness not to catch up with him eventually.

"M'fine." He mumbled, swaying slightly. The Doctor stared, somewhere between scepticism and concern. "Exhausted." He admitted, almost too tired for embarrassment.

The Doctor surprised him with a sheepish grin. "That's my fault. Go that way." He pointed. "Second door on the right."

Felix followed his gesture with tired eyes and saw a corridor which he had not previously noticed. "There's…more?"

"Oh yes."

"What's the second door on the right?"

"Sleep. We can head off when you're ready, no rush."

"I'll be wasting time…"

"Felix." The Doctor grinned. "Time machine, remember?"

Felix closed his eyes for a moment. Time machine, of course. _Time Machine._


	8. 1187

**I'm very very very very very sorry for the wait. I've been BUSY. I know I keep making that excuse. Please forgive me ;u;**

**Anyway, in the course of this chapter and the next, and quite possibly the one after that, I am going to absolutely BUTCHER a well-loved legend. I did a bit of research on the character who features here, but I'm going to mimic the BBC and show absolutely no regard for historical or literary facts and make everything as inaccurate as I possibly can. FUCK IT ALL IT'S ART OKAY. I CAN DO WHAT I LIKE. IT'S ART.**

**(but seriously if you're a scholar of medieval history look away now)**

"She's a beauty, she is." The Doctor grinned. "A beauty."

Felix smiled back, infected by the Doctor's enthusiasm. The Time Lord continued to grin expectantly. "Oh. Right...why's she a beauty?"

The Doctor beamed. "You're catching on. She's a beauty 'cause she's _clever." _He twirled a dial of the TARDIS lovingly. "This should mean that _basically..._if I do _this..."_ –he slotted the test tube into a handy little gap where tiny prongs immediately protruded to hold it in place- "...then she's take us to the DNA's source."

"You mean...like...where it came from?"

"Exactamundo."

"Um...so...basically...autopilot again?"

A little sheepish, the Time Lord grinned. "Yep. Went brilliantly last time." He laughed, and Felix laughed with him.

He felt elated, and very refreshed after his long slumber in the cosy bedroom which the Doctor had directed him to. The on-board showers of the TARDIS had played something of a part in his good mood, too; they were far superior to the lukewarm dribble he usually experienced in his own flat...and following his shower had been the most wonderful experience of all; the TARDIS wardrobe. At home, Felix had a standard attire: a generic jeans/tshirt/shirt ensemble which served him well from day to day and even looked relatively respectable when worn with his all-purpose coat and scarf (his scarf was a part of his outfit any time of year that he could get away with it- it made him feel _accessorised). _The TARDIS wardrobe, however, was so well-stocked and _magnificent _that Felix felt it could aid him in becoming anyone he wanted.

In the end, he settled for a standard t-shirt/jeans/shirt ensemble. So much for adventure.

"You ready?" The Doctor leaned over the console with a _daring _expression which Felix was beginning to really like.

"Yep."

"Allons-y!"

There was a rumble, sudden turbulence, a landing screech, and then they were somewhere new.

The Doctor grinned again.

"That seemed...bumpier." Felix noted.

"We're far away."

"Far, meaning...?"

"We've gone back in time."

"_Back?_" Okay. Right. Okay. "How far?"

"Very." Elation brightened the Time Lord's tone. "You're not in Kansas anymore!"

Felix looked to the doors of the TARDIS, and then back to the Doctor, wishing he knew how to react. An array of indescribable emotions bubbled within. "Wow..."

"Fancy a look?"

"I...yes..." Felix paused, shutting his eyes for a moment, but quickly re-opening them and looking at the Doctor with eyes that shone with his sense of being utterly overwhelmed. "Sorry." He mumbled. "This is just..." he searched for non-melodramatic words. "It's all very...great. I'm...well...it's hard to get my head around."

"You're doing very well."

Felix searched for a hint of sarcasm, and discreetly scrutinised the Doctor when he found none. The Time Lord's expression seemed genuine, his eyebrows slightly raised in sincerity. The barista raised a hand and twisted a lock of his own hair awkwardly, growing warm as he shifted on the spot, a little incredulous but mostly embarrassed.

"Thanks."

"I mean it."

"Well...I...thanks."

There was a pause during which Felix found himself somewhere between heart-warming gratitude and bashfulness. He had always found compliments confusing, particularly the genuine kind. On hearing them, he always began by feeling slight doubt as he pondered whether or not he was the victim of a highly amusing piss-take, followed by guilt, on discovering the compliment to be authentic, for having expected this from what was surely a lovely, sincere being. After this usually came a rapid spread of a glowing twinge of warm appreciation in his stomach. He knew very well that he allowed words to affect him far too much; harsh ones could inflict unhappiness upon him for several days, and similarly kind ones gave him a lasting sense of wondrous gratefulness. He was, as Bobby would say, a "fucking over-emotional-pansy-faggot-wanker".

After the disbelief, guilt and gratitude, however, there was always guaranteed awkwardness as he contemplated how to express his feelings without comings off as pretentious or over-sensetive.

He took a breath. "Right, let's go."

The Doctor beamed, running to the TARDIS doors as though trying to beat Felix there, light and sprightly on the balls of his feet. He waited until Felix joined him and then, looking just as excited as his companion felt, let the door swing open with a creak.

Felix stepped out first. The Time Lord stood aside for him, although it was clear that he, too, was itching to see the new era they had landed in.

Grey eyes stared at the landscape, attempting to suck in every sight that could possibly be seen. 21st-century lungs sucked in a breath of chilled air from another time, and Felix wasn't sure if it was the effect of the cold air or this fact which gave him the sudden rush of light-headedness which he experienced as he looked around himself, hungry for this new experience.

The sun shone high in a clear, rippled-blue sky, suspended prettily over a picturesque, brown little village which Felix could see almost all of; it was about a quarter of a mile down a slope from where he was standing. He could see its streets jostling and writhing vibrantly and hear the cries of salesmen and women and babble of idle interaction. He shivered. These were the people of a different time. He was _standing in history._

The TARDIS itself had landed, it seemed, on the very outskirts of a forest which appeared to overlook the village. This was fortunate; the blue box was partially concealed, yet not quite hidden enough to be lost.

Felix watched the village for several long, awe-stuck moments, simply drinking in the very concept of experiencing such aged culture, before his eyes caught the sight which really ought to have been the first thing he'd noticed.

On the far side of the village, there stood a neatly sloping hill, green and adorned with pristine grass which was startling against the backdrop of the bright blue sky. On top of this stood a magnificent piece of architecture which made Felix draw in a gust of happy breath.

A castle stood before them, proud and erect and perfectly plucked from a fairy-tale.

He released his breath slowly. Museums and old literature and paintings and long-lost stories were things he adored, and to be in the midst of such stunning history was the kind of thing he usually fantasized about whenever he felt like dwelling on his inconvenient lust for adventure.

The Doctor stepped out to join him, a grin tugging the edges of his mouth. "Oh, brilliant! 1187! I love 1187!"

"Yeah?" Felix grinned back. For once, he had no qualms about allowing his emotions to become apparent. Little by little, the Doctor's enthusiasm, his daring, and his take-it-as-it-comes attitude were beginning to rub off on Felix, and the Time Lord's presence was starting to feel like a comfortable place to be in. With the Doctor, he was a very different man to the weak, socially awkward, resigned boy from Edinburgh who he usually portrayed.

"Yes! Oh, this is a brilliant year!" The Doctor seemed about to bounce off, but he paused, frowning. "Although...I'm not sure _why _we're here." He pondered this for a moment.

"Do you think the TARDIS got it wrong?"

"The TARDIS doesn't get things wrong. Usually. Well. Sometimes...maybe..." They stood for a moment, before the Time Lord shrugged, and set off towards the village.

Felix stumbled quickly after him. "Doctor?"

"Mm-hm?"

"Won't we look a bit..."

"What?"

"Y'know..."

"Nahh. We'll fit right in."

Felix glanced down at his own jeans, sceptical. He didn't, however, voice his concerns. For once, looking out of place wasn't an issue which pressed too much on his mind. After all, when travelling with the Doctor, one could look nothing but impressive.

They reached the village quickly, and as they did so, Felix's comfort derived from being protected by the Doctor's presence diminished somewhat. Suddenly surrounded by what appeared to be the most realistic of BBC historical dramas, Felix felt uncomfortably _different._

The people around him were thin, undernourished, but with warm-looking, red-cheeked faces and bright eyes. Their clothes were an array of browns and off-whites; layers of insubstantial many-times mended materials, evidently re-used but neatly arranged. Despite Felix's worries, however, they moved busily around them, taking little to no notice of their existence, save for, to Felix's pleasant surprise, the occasional cheery wave or nod or impersonal smile of greeting. The Doctor returned these greetings heartily, becoming increasingly more animated until Felix interjected.

"Doctor?"

"Oh, hello there-" he broke off. "Yes?"

"Um." Felix kept his voice low. "What do we do now?"

"The usual." The Doctor gave him a grin. "Come on, Felix you tell me. What do we do when there's a mystery at hand?"

Felix fumbled in his brain. "Um...oh!" He looked to the Doctor, a tiny measure of triumph in his eyes. "We ask around."

"Spot on, Felix MacArthur."

The barista smiled discreetly to himself. The Doctor's tone was appreciative. He seemed genuinely impressed, and although Felix realised that this was probably simply to do with the alien's good nature, it still gave him a soft sense of happiness which was rare to him. It was a precious kind of feeling.

"So, we're looking for a bar?"

"You're on a roll. That one looks good to me." The Doctor point at a _gorgeous _building, thatched and brown and falling apart and exactly how Felix might have imagined a 'Ye Olde Tavern' type place to look. The utter fairy-tale authenticity of everything was giving him a slight sensation of light-headedness.

"Better than good," he murmured. He felt a little breathless. His heart was quickening at every little quirk of this strange world- at the cries of every salesman, at the snippets of archaic conversation from passing women, at the mere prospect of setting foot in this sumptuously rustic building and throwing himself into the midst of this haven of history.

"C'mon, then."

Within the tavern was everything that Felix had expected it to be, and the romantic inside of him gave a little shiver of pleasure at the sight of low, wooden beams, hearty vessels of a substance which he presumed (with a shiver of glee) to be _ale _and rosy-cheeked maidens. The Doctor, it seemed did not miss his look of joyful appreciation, and gave him a knowing grin.

"Happy?" The Time Lord cocked an eyebrow, still smiling.

"I...it's..." Felix shook his head with an expressive little shrug of utter happiness. "It's perfect. Like something in a book."

The Doctor simply smiled. Felix allowed his eyes to wander, looking at each person at the bar in turn. His eyes fell on one female, who looked as though she had stumbled straight out of a perfectly executed historical drama. His gaze grew wondrous. This was a dream. Was it a dream? It must be a dream. A wonderful one, with maidens from storybooks.

"Ah," smirked the Doctor beside him. "The fair maidens of ye olde England." Felix reddened, trying not to notice the suggestive eyebrow-wiggle he was receiving. "Go and talk to her. I'll help. I can introduce you."

"No. No thank you. Um. No," Felix mumbled hastily, dropping his eyes.

"The other one, then?"

Felix paused. His eyes flickered to the other female, lingering there unhappily, before wandering away and coming to rest on the tall, lean man who stood between them. He stared for a moment longer. "Um," he paused. "Sort of."

The Doctor's gaze followed his own, and soon became saturated with realisation. "Oh. _Oh."_

"Yeah."

"Not girls?"

"Definitely not."

"Well." Felix eyed the Doctor. He wondered what the Time Lord attitude towards homosexuality was like. "I could introduce you to him?"

It seemed, thankfully, that they were not a homophobic race, and Felix felt a little discomfort leave him. Sometimes, coming out was a friendship-breaker, and this was one friendship he _needed _intact.

"I'm really okay."

The Doctor gave him a grin. "Well, I'm going for a chat. You can come with me. Only if you want, of course." The Time Lord began to walk away. Felix hurriedly followed.

It seemed that the Doctor slipped in amongst the three as though he had been in this very tavern every day of his life. Felix was left to awkwardly linger.

"Ladies...gent. Tell me, do you recommend this particular ale?" It seemed that the Doctor could endear himself to pretty much any living soul with his detestably charming smile. Even Felix felt its warmth, although it was not directed at him.

"Oh sir...'tis the finest you'll find for miles around," replied one of the maidens. Felix swallowed a cry of glee at her dialogue, basking in the sensation that he had plunged into a historical novel and was now happily swimming about in its depths.

"It is, you say? I'll have some of that, then. Oh, and one for my friend." Felix was beckoned closer. He shuffled, and then drew nearer to stand beside the Doctor, somehow slotted between the Time Lord and the man he had been caught eyeing. He gave the Doctor a look. It was ignored, but no doubt seen.

"I'm sorry, but who might you be?" The man asked, not in unfriendly tones. He, it seemed, was just as subject to the Doctor's charisma as Felix had always found himself to be.

"Oh, I'm sorry. That was rude." The Doctor frowned as though to scold himself. "I'm the Doctor, have you met my friend? His name's Felix. He's lovely."

The man grinned handsomely, his eyes full of a good-natured shine. He held out a strong hand to Felix.

"Robin," he said. "Sir Robin of Locksley."

There was a long pause.

Felix stared.


	9. Robin Hood

**Again, I'm staring this with another apology for lateness.**

**I'm. Really. Sorry.**

**In other news, I now also have an A03 account under the same name as this. Feel free to go and creep it. ****Oh yes, I changed my name as well, from fuzzyred to metaphoricalrhetorical. Sorry for any confusion!**

**This chapter's very short and probably utterly historically inaccurate. Sorry sorry sorry.**

"_What?"_ The Doctor nearly shouted his exclamation, his eyes widening in a delight which accurately displayed some of Felix's own internal emotions.

It took all of the barista's practised self-control not to begin raving. He managed, instead, to freeze into silent awe, and stare.

Robin looked between the two. He seemed a little disconcerted, but not, it had to be said, entirely displeased by their enthusiastic reaction.

The Doctor grabbed his hand and began to shake it vigorously.

"It's an absolute _pleasure_!"

"I..." There was an uncertain exchange of glances between Robin and the two women. "I...the pleasure is all mine."

The Doctor beamed. "I'm a huge fan. Taking from the rich, giving to the poor…well, it's a bit communist, but no-one really cares about that if you've got a bow and arrow. I think you're great, anyway. _Brilliant."_

Robin stared back blankly. The Doctor continued to grin for several moments, before his eyes widened a fraction and he began to flap his hands dramatically.

"Oh! Oh, wait!" He brandished a finger, knowingly. "1187! Crusades haven't happened yet, am I right?" He turned to Felix, looking meaningful. "The crusades haven't happened yet."

Robin continued to watch them. His eyes were unblinking, his lips parted, and his face was a still shot of bewilderment.

"Oh, don't mind us," the Doctor grinned. "Felix, would you like a drink? I bet you'd like a drink. Sir Robin'll buy you a drink, won't he?"

"Certainly."

"Well then. That's that."

And with that sauntered off, pursued quite enthusiastically by the two girls.

Felix coughed awkwardly.

"Your name was…Felix?"

"Yeah."

"Of where?"

"Sorry?"

"Felix…of where? Where do you hail from?"

"Oh. Um…" Felix paused. "About. Here…here and there. Y'know."

Robin eyed him with a furrowed brow, and Felix hazarded an uncertain smile. The archer's gaze remained dark and unfathomable and Felix realised that he _was, _in fact, far from unattractive.

"I find you strange, wanderer. What brings you to Nottinghamshire?"

"I...we're looking for something."

Robin raised his eyebrows, apparently impressed. "A _quest?"_

"I...kind of? Yeah. A quest."

"Pray tell, a quest for what?"

Felix shifted. "We don't know..."

"Don't know? But then surely it is no quest, if there is nothing to be found, or achieved?"

"No, no...there is _something..._we just don't what it is." Gosh. That sounded convincing.

"That seems a doomed quest, my friend. Here. Ale."

A drink was placed in front of Felix, generously frothy and smelling strongly of hops. To taste, it was more pungent than beer, but the way it went to Felix's head straight away was not dissimilar. He heard Bobby's voice sounding with shocking clarity in his mind as he took a long, calming draft. _Slow down, MacArthur. Fuckin' lightweight._

"But you seem an able fellow," Robin was continuing. "Or, certainly, your friend does."

That just about summed it up, Felix thought. He felt a little melancholy for a moment or two, until he registered that Robin's words were accompanied by a snigger, his eyes fixed on something just past the barista's shoulder. He followed his gaze to see the Doctor flanked by the two females, who seemed, to the Time Lord's evident bemusement and discomfort, to be making advances upon him to their best ability.

Felix snorted. "Yeah, he does."

Robin's gaze was on him again. "Might you tell me the nature of this quest, wanderer?"

"Um...well...I suppose we're sort of looking...well, for answers?"

"Ah! A quest for knowledge!"

"No..well...em..." _We're looking for aliens. _"We think...I mean...we're looking for something. Something here. But we don't know what it is." Robin gazed at him with blank eyes. "Has there been...like...anything weird? Near here?"

Robin paused. "You are on a quest to find something...strange and unknown? Here, in Nottinghamshire?"

"Yeah."

"I have a tale which may interest you."

"I...you do?"

"I believe so. I cannot guarantee that it will aid you, but...well, if nothing else, it will surely intruige you."

"I'd wager you're about right." The Doctor had reappeared. His expression was intent. Robin nodded to him once.

"Doctor," he greeted him. "I warn you; you may be inclined to disregard what I tell you. I confess when I first heard the tale, I thought it fantastical...but then I _saw it."_

Felix found that he was inclined to shiver ridiculously as Robin dropped his voice with obviously intentional melodrama.

"Saw what?" The Doctor's voice was quite level and serious, but it had an edge of unearthly glee about it.

"_The being." _Robin leaned forwards. Although his tone was grave, a tiny smile played on the corners of his lips. He was enjoying retelling his story to an intrigued audience, it seemed.

Felix kept his eyes on the archer, but in the Doctor's voice he could _hear _his eyebrows raising in interest, lips curving in joyful anticipation. "'The being?'"

"The being," confirmed Robin, nodding ominously. "It is...well, it is somewhat like a man. It is of human stature and poise, yet its face...its attire, the tongue in which it speaks...these are all alien."

The Doctor's expression was bright and intent. "Go on."

"Many believe it to be some kind of savage; that is has been driven out of its wits. Perhaps...perhaps it is the work of Satan." Robin seemed in his element. He leant in and spoke in a hushed voice, his eyes shadowed with melodrama. Felix found himself quite gripped, holding his drink with fingers which squeezed unnecessarily tightly and listening quite intently.

"You don't think so?" he chipped in, surprising even himself. Contribution to discussion was not usually a pastime of his. Generally, he made a point of avoiding vocalising his thoughts.

Robin looked at him, and shook his head with dark sobriety. "It is not human."

Felix could feel the Doctor smiling behind him.

"Good stuff," he grinned. Felix turned to look at him, and the Time Lord's eyes glowed. "Could be exactly what we're looking for. If not, well...come on." He grinned. "It's an alien in 12th Century Nottingham. Who can resist?"

Felix smiled back, a little taken by the thought. _Alien. 12__th__ century England. Robin Hood._

"You intend to seek it out?" Robin's gaze was more than a little incredulous. "I...should warn you, Doctor." He paused. "Men have tried."

"And...?"

"They lost their lives."

"And yet here you are," pointed out the Doctor, eyebrows pointedly raised.

"I was...fortunate."

"I'll be fortunate, too. Those men...I'm sure they were very brave. I bet they were fantastic...but they were missing one thing, Robin."

"And what, sir, would that be?" Robin's voice was a little stiff. He evidently disliked hearing his late companions spoken of in anything less than terms of glorification.

"They weren't _me._"

Robin's gaze was unreadable for several moments as he brought his drink to his lips and took a long, thoughtful draft of his drink.

"Meet me tomorrow, Doctor," he said, after several moments. His voice seemed decisive. "Meet me on the Eastern brink of Sherwood Forest, at dusk. And you, sir." He nodded to Felix.

Felix glanced back at the Doctor. The Time Lord was watching Robin, eyebrows slightly elevated. "You'll help?"

"I shall."

"Men have died."

"Yet...you are confident you will not."

"Oh, no. Not confident. You never know."

"But you still wish to see it?"

"I do."

"Then I shall aid you, Doctor."

Felix felt, somehow, that this exchange was rather significant, although he wasn't entirely sure how so. Robin looked at the Time Lord as though challenging him, and the Doctor looked back with an odd little half-smile.

"Thank you."

Robin nodded once. "Have you lodgings for the night?"

The Doctor waved a vague hand. "Oh, we thought we'd just..."

"Stay in the inn," advised Robin, "They have a vacancy." With that, he summoned a robust-looking barmaid who agreed that there was indeed one room left.

"Brilliant," the Doctor grinned.

* * *

Felix was very still. He was loathe to stir, to stretch, to twitch, for fear of seeming untoward.

"This is cosy."

"Mm." Felix shifted an inch, keeping his eyes to the ceiling, his form tensed.

"Not bad for the 12th Century."

"Mm."

"I'm serious. I shared a bed once in the Renaissance Era. Not a patch on this."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, this is luxury."

"Mm."

The conversation fizzled away, somewhat pathetically. Felix felt the Doctor wriggle beside him, and wondered if the Time Lord shared any of his discomfort. Was it strange for him to be lying in such close proximity to a recently-confessed homosexual, or did such things not concern him? He was realising now that despite deciding to travel in time and space with the Doctor and his strange box that, actually, he barely knew the man.

Not man. Alien. He had to keep reminding himself of that, as well. It was far too easy to spend time with the Doctor; it seemed unfeasible that they weren't actually of the same species. Except, of course, for the fact that the Doctor was superior to him in every way.

Anyway, he knew from experience that he should exercise caution. He was well aware that people (regardless of species) were taciturn, and dangerous. Some were hateful, of course, and some very wonderful, but there were also those funny ones in-between who seemed fine until a certain physical barrier was accidentally crossed and then all of a sudden Felix was left with a bloody nose and a '_don't touch me, you fag'._

Well. That had only happened once, in that context at least, but he had been consequently left with a healthy awareness of peoples' unpredictability, and the utmost respect for the personal space of others. _Never, ever, ever disregard what may or may not be occurring in somebody's mind. Never._

"Doctor?" His voice was quiet.

"Yeeeees?"

"Want me to move?"

"What?"

"I'll take the floor, if you like."

"No, no, no, no, no. We couldn't have that!

"Oh. Ok." Felix breathed in slowly, once, and exhaled quietly. "You don't mind?"

"Mind? No. Why would I mind? Do you snore? Tell me you don't snore."

"I'm, like...well, _gay."_

"Yeah. Yeah, I got that."

Felix shifted slightly, and his eyes flickered to glance at the Doctor, who seemed at ease as he watched the ceiling. "I..." he muttered. "That's not...for you, it's not..._odd, _is it?"

"I'm an _alien, _I can't really be prejudiced."

"I'm in the same bed as you."

"Am I making you uncomfortable?"

"That...that's not really the issue."

"It's not a problem. You're not harbouring a secret love for me, it's all good."

The Doctor's tone was laughing, but Felix felt as though it were an accusation. It wasn't, of course, but his lingering disbelief that the Time Lord accepted him, _liked _him, even, and seemed very much willing to keep him around was foremost in his mind.

"No, no. You're okay." He wondered if he'd answered too hastily. The Doctor gave him a nudge.

"You should sleep. You're human, you get tired."

"Don't you?"

"Sometimes."

"Do you sleep?"

"Now and then."

The implication was that tonight was not going to be one of those rare nights during which the Doctor slumbered, and this made Felix marginally uncomfortable. The Time Lord would be awake as he slept, potentially _observing _him probably with some amusement.

Surprisingly, however, he was beginning to not care, so he proceeded to shut his eyes in search of rest.


End file.
